As the Republican convention kicks off this week in Milwaukee, the program will sound very different, not only from its originally planned content, but from every political convention that has yet preceded it. Democrats had hoped just a month or two ago that former President Trump would trundle onto the convention stage hobbled by legal convictions and poor favorability, or perhaps even join it remotely from prison after one or more humiliating sentencings. Instead, the stage will now feature an entirely different candidate: Trump risen from the ashes, a fist-pumping, rough-riding Teddy Roosevelt with a bandaged ear and a fresh orange glow.

The former President will rightfully savor his moment of survival before being smothered with his new vice-presidential pick by an avalanche of colored balloons and well-wishes. Before that happens, however, in another notable reversal of the program prior to the shooting, it was announced this weekend that the stage will now also be welcoming Trump’s most recent challenger for the nomination, former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

While true that the days of delegate swaps and coalition forging over cigars and handshakes are long since over, there are still deals to be made on a convention floor. In the modern era, these deals are more about exchanging patronage for promotion and forgiveness for support, helping unite attendees and viewers behind a single candidate that will bear its message in the fall. For the winner of the primary contests, it’s an opportunity to shore up support

The Secret Service had already been under investigation by House Oversight Committee Republicans for several months when a bullet came within inches of killing former President Trump, killed a bystander, and injured at least two others at a rally in Pennsylvania Saturday afternoon.

Even though Trump and his family members credited the special agents and a counter sniper assigned to his protective detail with saving his life and possibly many others, recriminations against the Secret Service started almost immediately after the assassination attempt.

Americans could see for themselves how the agents and officers traveling with Trump on Saturday acted heroically, falling on the former president after his right ear was pierced by a bullet and returning heavy caliber gunfire, killing the 20-year-old shooter, Thomas Crooks. But questions remain over how Crooks managed to perch on a nearby rooftop and come within inches of killing Trump, renewing past criticisms of the once-vaunted agency with a troubled history of security lapses, employee misconduct, and uneven discipline practices.

Rep. James Comer, who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, has called on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to testify at a hearing on Monday, July 22.

“Americans demand answers about the assassination attempt of President Trump,” Comer tweeted Saturday night.

In a letter to Cheatle, Comer was far more laudatory of the agency’s actions.

“The tremendous bravery of the individual United States Secret Service agents who protected President Trump[,] eliminated the gunman, and possibly averted more loss of life cannot be overstated,”

After nearly four years of leftist governance, Americans know the Biden administration habitually plays fast and loose with the law. This habit has been especially egregious in education, where the administration hopes to parlay the 2020 Supreme Court case on employment discrimination, Bostock v. Clayton County, into authority for new federal regulations under Title IX, a law that prohibits sex discrimination in education. Not only are the new regulations legally dubious, but they also defy common sense as they would force girls to share school bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms with boys.  

Fortunately, the new regulations recently hit a major roadblock when federal courts in Louisiana, Kentucky, Kansas, and Texas issued preliminary injunctions against them, with additional injunctions in other courts likely to follow. These courts correctly rejected the Biden administration’s argument that Bostock creates some equivalence between hiring and firing employees and showering in high school locker rooms. 

On the day he was inaugurated, President Biden directed all federal agencies to revise their policies to reflect the reasoning of the Bostock decision. Bostock held that the prohibition on employment discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act because of an individual’s sex includes terminating an employee simply for being gay or transgender. The court concluded that under the statute’s text, “sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role” in such termination decisions.  

President Biden’s inaugural directive culminated in the issuance of the new regulations under Title IX. Litigation over the regulations centers principally on their redefinition of sex