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“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
- Luke 2:14
Pennsylvania: House Majority Democrats Pushing More Gun Control Next Week
Chief Of Staff Susie Wiles Says She’s ‘Not Going Anywhere,’ Calls Reports Of Her White House Departure ‘Fiction’
Who Really Won The Midterms’ Gerrymandering War? The Answer May Come Down To A Few Races
Bloomberg: SpaceX IPO Closes Door to China, Hong Kong Capital
Scott Bessent’s Most Vicious Capitol Hill Moments
This past week, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent sparred with Democrats as he testified before multiple committees on Capitol Hill.
Here are the seemingly mild-mannered secretary’s most vicious verbal battles of the week during his testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.
Who Was President During WWI?
“Do you agree with President [Donald] Trump that you also do not care about Americans’ financial situation?” Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., asked Bessent, pressing him on the economic consequences of the president’s decision to strike Iran.
“Who was the president during World War One?” Bessent replied.
“I don’t know,” Chu admitted.
Bessent went on to argue that Trump, similar to President Woodrow Wilson, was willing to accept certain consequences for voluntarily entering a conflict.
“I will promise you that President Woodrow Wilson, who was president during World War One—that the Germans did not attack us, that he got into that. It was a war of principle. And I guarantee you President Woodrow Wilson thought the same thing, congresswoman,” Bessent said.
Suozzi’s ‘Former Constituents‘
Bessent also sparred with Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York, a Democrat who represents an eastern Long Island district.
“Prices are up, gas prices are up, grocery prices are up, energy prices are up, health care prices are up, interest rates are high—all specifically related to the policies of this administration,” Suozzi said.
“Good to see you, Congressman. I want to invite you to South Carolina to see all your former constituents,” Bessent told Suozzi, poking fun at the number of New Yorkers moving to the Palmetto State.
Wyden
Bessent was particularly vicious with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who accused Bessent of covering up the financial records of the now-deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein
“The machinery of government works to the benefit of Donald Trump before all else,” Wyden said. “That’s the corrupt framework that produces insurrection slush funds, protects pedophiles, and dismisses the concerns of people who are worried about being able to make rent.”
Bessent fired back ruthlessly.
“Sen. Wyden has mendaciously slandered the Treasury building in an attempt to cover up his son having an investment meeting with Jeffrey Epstein to ask for funding,” Bessent said.
Documents released by the Department of Justice revealed Wyden’s son Adam, an investor, had engaged in business discussions with Epstein.
“Nobody is interested in the ramblings of a capo in the most corrupt regime in American history,” Wyden replied.
“We would like to hear what Adam Wyden and Jeffrey Epstein talked about,” Bessent said. “Your son’s largest investment position was Rick’s Cabaret. So did your son and Jeffrey Epstein talk about pole dancing as he begged him for money using your limited credibility?”
RCI Hospitality Holdings, previously known as Rick’s Cabaret, operates strip clubs across the United States.
Adam Wyden’s investment firm, ADW Capital, did not respond to a request from the Daily Signal for comment on Bessent’s remarks.
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No Great Expectations for New Jersey’s Businesses
It was the based of times, it was the woke of times, it was the age of candor, it was the age of cant, it was the epoch of sense, it was the epoch of pretense.
And it was the season when firms started moving from high-tax, high-cost blue states to freedom-loving red states.
ExxonMobil’s shareholders just sent a clear message: enough is enough. By a margin of 71%, they voted to move the firm’s legal home from New Jersey to Texas, overriding objections from proxy advisers Glass Lewis and ISS, which warned that the move might erode shareholder rights.
You know what erodes shareholder rights? Climate litigation, ESG-driven activism, and state attorneys general who treat energy companies as political targets. New Jersey has been among the states pursuing aggressive environmental and climate-related litigation against energy companies.
Of course, no modern business can entirely avoid these pressures. Commercial relationships span state lines, and policies enacted in blue states such as New Jersey and California can continue to affect companies’ operations even after they relocate their legal domicile or headquarters to red states such as Texas.
The redomiciliation, at any rate, makes sense. Exxon has operated out of Texas since 1989. Its New Jersey incorporation was a legal relic, a 140-year-old address with no operational meaning. But relocation alone should not be mistaken for broader reform. Firms can, after all, change their state of incorporation while maintaining the same (often woke) operational structure, workplace policies, and business practices.
Texas has, by comparison, established a corporate legal framework that emphasizes business operations over broader social policy objectives. Recent statutory changes have made derivative suits more difficult to bring, strengthened protections for directors, and codified aspects of the business judgment rule.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board highlights that New Jersey’s corporate tax rate has ranked among the highest in the nation, reaching 11.5% for many large corporations, whereas Texas has no corporate income tax whatsoever. Industrial electricity costs are also lower in Texas than in New Jersey. The regulatory climate (like the sunshine and weather) is friendlier down south.
Exxon isn’t the first to notice: SpaceX, Tesla, Coinbase, and Chevron have all made the same calculation.
There is a legitimate concern worth acknowledging. Texas’s new director-friendly statutes could, in the wrong hands, entrench management against legitimate shareholder challenges. Exxon alleges that it won’t adopt “any elective provisions” under the Texas statutory scheme “that weaken shareholder rights as compared to New Jersey law.” And that’s the right call.
But a pledge is not a biblical covenant. Could the company formalize those commitments in its governing documents, with any future changes requiring majority shareholder approval? Possibly. Boards that trust their own stewardship shouldn’t fear putting that in writing.
Courts, however, have recognized that contractual arrangements that unduly constrain a board’s ability to exercise its fiduciary duties—absent a fiduciary-out mechanism—may be impermissible in merger negotiations. Although that reasoning presumably does not apply to charter or bylaw provisions, the comparison raises an interesting issue.
Federalism works, it seems, as designed. States compete for corporate charters. That competition disciplines them toward better governance.
Texas has made its case: lower costs, cleaner legal frameworks, less exposure to politicized litigation. And corporations, no surprise, are responding. The migration of capital and enterprise to the Lone Star State—and other red states—is a market verdict.
The deeper question is whether corporate boards have an obligation to shareholders to reconsider domicile when a state’s tax burden, regulatory hostility, and litigation climate consistently destroy value. The answer looks like yes.
Talent, network advantages, and inertia may keep some companies tethered to California or New York for now. But Austin and Nashville are no longer afterthoughts.
ExxonMobil has moved toward operational reality and away from a jurisdiction that had made itself hostile to the business of business. Other boards should be asking whether their own legal addresses still make sense or are just bad habits to break.
In a republic built on divided sovereignty, the freedom to exit is one of the most powerful checks on bad governance. Texas is winning. New Jersey and its blue-state counterparts are losing.
It is, in the end, a tale of two states. One offers stability, clarity, and the quiet confidence of a jurisdiction that trusts enterprise to create value. The other offers the best of intentions and the worst of incentives: high taxes, regulatory hostility, and a plaintiff’s bar that never sleeps.
For ExxonMobil, the choice between them was not close.
Gun Sales Surge Nationwide in May as Virginia Background Checks Double — Spanberger’s Ban Selling Guns Faster Than It Bans Them
Virginia background checks more than doubled as gun owners responded to the state's new assault weapons ban.
The post Gun Sales Surge Nationwide in May as Virginia Background Checks Double — Spanberger’s Ban Selling Guns Faster Than It Bans Them appeared first on The Truth About Guns.
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California Scheming? Golden State’s Glacial Vote Count Bolsters Case for SAVE America Act
The polls closed in California on Tuesday at 8 p.m. local time. As of Saturday, nobody knows which two candidates will be competing in November for governor or Los Angeles mayor.
Indeed, mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day may stumble in for seven days until June 9—and still be counted. Thus, weeks could pass before these major political contests are settled. Counties have until July 3 to report their official results to the secretary of state.
It was not always this way. By 5 a.m. on March 6, 2013, 100% of precincts had totaled the previous day’s ballots. Nine hours after voting ended, Angelenos knew the final two mayoral rivals. (Gil Garcetti prevailed.) As of Friday, only 71% of ballots had been tabulated in Los Angeles and just 68% statewide.
Escargot can count votes more swiftly than Californians. Pundit Nate Silver calls this “failed state shit.” He observed this week via X: “The fact that California elections often can’t be resolved for weeks is kind of insane and not common in other electoral systems around the world.”
Silver and Eli McKown-Dawson elaborated, “Colombia held a presidential election on Sunday [May 30], and 99.98% of the result was in on Monday morning. Japan also counts most of its votes overnight. And in the UK (not exactly a poster child for state capacity), you can generally expect to have calls for all 650 parliamentary seats the morning after the election.”
California Counts
President Donald Trump is not amused.
“The Dumocrats are at it again!” Trump roared Thursday via Truth Social. “They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS.”
Trump continued: “There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California. Votes are all tied up. May not be in for weeks. Under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. Why the vote counting DELAY???”
Trump echoes conservative complaints that GOP candidates in tight races too often triumph only on Election Night. Thanks to magic ballots, these Republicans wane, and the Democrats wax and then win. Magic ballots rarely favor Republicans.
California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Confidence Corrodes
Californians are experiencing either corruption or the appearance of corruption. Neither “I am being robbed” nor “I think I am being robbed” yields deep sleep. If Democrats are using this slovenly process to slouch toward a stuffed-ballot-box defeat of Steve Hilton, Spencer Pratt, or both, the perpetrators must be handcuffed at once.
But even if California’s count is purer than St. Francis of Assisi and merely looks crooked, millions of Americans will conclude that someone is cheating, and the entire system is rigged. Such suspicions corrode confidence in elections and the republic that they serve.
Winners easily respect their leaders and institutions, but even citizens who lose elections can accept opponents who succeed, fair and square.
But when voters feel cheated at the polls, then the whole structure starts to reek. “That’s not my mayor” and “That’s not my governor” become battle cries as America slides toward Civil War 2.0.
SAVE America Act
California’s pathetic performance offers yet another reason for the U.S. Senate to pry its collective butt out of the proverbial Barcalounger and pass the SAVE America Act already.
Catapulting mass mail-in ballots atop the ash heap of history and limiting them to the sick, the infirm, and those absent on Election Day (as the SAVE America Act requires) would go far toward ending this nightmare. And, to be accepted, all ballots must arrive before polls close (as the U.S. Supreme Court soon might decide.)
With these two reforms, California (and other states) could manage a much shorter stack of mail-in ballots. They could be counted every Election Day, with normal ballots. Winners and losers would emerge before the cocks crow at dawn.
To the Republican-led Senate: Scrap mass mail-in ballots. Pass the SAVE America Act. Make Election Night Great Again!
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