Cross-Examination

• Herding cats in the House: The tentative deal House Speaker Kevin McCarthy brokered over the weekend between Republican factions in order to get a stopgap spending bill passed collapsed on Tuesday. Members of the Freedom Caucus hammered their moderate Republican colleagues for being more willing to work with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown than to work with them. Florida Representative Byron Donalds explained, “A lot of my colleagues, Freedom Caucus members, etc., need to be very concerned about the fact that we do have some Republican members who are willing to sign on to a clean [continuing resolution] with the Democrats, and basically eliminates out leverage to do anything.” Democrats, who have almost always had the political advantage when it comes to government shutdown events, are eyeing another victory if McCarthy can’t get Republicans to come together and pass a resolution that puts the pressure onto the Democrat-controlled Senate to respond. By the way, the U.S. national debt surpassed $33 trillion Monday.

• Tuberville’s test: Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville has stuck to his guns over his objection to the Biden administration’s decision to use taxpayer dollars to ensure military members access to abortion. For months, Tuberville has refused to give his vote to grant unanimous approval of all flag officer nominations, resulting in a backlog of several hundred officer promotions that Democrats and the Biden administration claim threatens military readiness. Tuberville has repeatedly pointed out that the Biden administration could rescind its abortion policy or Senate Leader Chuck Schumer could schedule votes for each individual officer confirmation. With the administration and Democrats unwilling to consider either of those two options, Tuberville is seeking to force a confirmation vote for Marine Corps commandant nominee General Eric Smith, who was nominated by Joe Biden back in May and has been serving as the acting commandant after General David Berger stepped down in July. Tuberville is proving that he is more concerned with military readiness than are the Democrats.

• Ninth Circuit upholds religious liberty: In a somewhat surprising ruling given its history, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the San Jose Unified School District in California violated the First Amendment freedom of religion rights of students in 2019 when it banned the club Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) from schools. In a 9-2 vote, the Court found any club or group unavoidably “discriminates” by simply have policies. San Jose’s school district enacted its ban against the FCA because the FCA requires its officers to sign a statement of faith in which they pledge to uphold to biblical tenants on sexuality.

• Not a kids book: Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy caused quite a stir when he read excerpts from several sexually explicit books found in school libraries across the country that parents have been objecting to. A video clip of Kennedy reading from one of the books in question — Gender Queer, written by “transgender” activist Maia Kobabe — went viral due to its explicitness. Kobabe is a woman who identifies as “nonbinary” and who uses the nonexistent pronouns “e/em/eir.” She was asked about whether she believed her book was appropriate for children, and the answer says it all: “I don’t recommend this book for kids.”

• Fauci cashed in on the pandemic: When Dr. Anthony Fauci retired from heading the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases last year, an open records request revealed that he and his wife’s combined net worth was greater than $11 million. Unlike the majority of Americans, who were suffering financially due to job losses from draconian shutdowns over the course of the COVID pandemic, Fauci was seeing a windfall. At the time of his lucrative retirement, Fauci was the highest paid federal employee, pulling in a salary of $480,654. “During the pandemic years,” said OpenTheBooks CEO Adam Andrzejewski, “the Faucis became deca-millionaires, with their household net worth exceeding $10 million. Last year was a tough year in the markets. However, Fauci’s net worth is still up sharply from $7.6 million in 2019.” Last year, Fauci admitted that he knew there would be “collateral negative consequences” to the economy from the draconian measures he had insisted upon implementing, though he argued “you have to make a balance when you’re dealing with — we know the only way to stop something cold in its track is to try and shut things down.” Well, that’s especially easy to say when you’re not the one having to suffer the consequences of your own policies.

Headlines

• Ninth Circuit grants injunction against California law targeting gun marketing (Bearing Arms)

• Daily border numbers near all-time high (Daily Wire)

• The Biden administration separates families at the border, the media shrugs (Washington Free Beacon)

• Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss ‘integrated’ Middle East and Iran (NBC News)

• Hundreds of climate activists shut down Federal Reserve building entrance (Fox News)

• Palm Springs unveils AIDS memorial that looks like giant anus, backtracks after “heated debate” (Not the Bee)

• Minister of Truth: George Soros poured $14.8M into leftist vendetta against “disinformation” (Newsbusters)

• Tim Ballard resigns from his anti-trafficking organization after sexual harassment allegations (Washington Examiner)

• China flies more than 150 military planes toward Taiwan as island condemns military “harassment” (Fox News)

• Satire: Fact-checkers censoring crazy conspiracy theory that Hunter Biden is related to Joe Biden (Genesius Times)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.