Cross-Examination

• Newsom taps Butler: Remaining true to his 2021 commitment to appoint a black woman to fill the term of the late Senator Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom tapped EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler. Butler checks many of the Democrats’ diversity boxes, as she is not only black but also a homosexual, not to mention a rabid pro-abortion activist to boot. One glaring issue, however, is the fact that prior to Newsom’s announcement, Butler lived and was registered to vote in Maryland. However, Butler has lived in California, where she worked as a union organizer for nurses and home-care givers.

• San “Frandalism”: It’s no secret that San Francisco has a growing crime problem, thanks entirely to the leftist city adopting soft-on-crime polices. And thanks to the rising crime, an increasing number of businesses in the city have pulled up stakes and left for good. A recent statistic, courtesy of a survey conducted by the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, demonstrates just how bad crime has gotten in the City by the Bay. Just 3% of restaurants in the city have not experienced any vandalism. Since 2021, San Francisco has shelled out $1 million to almost 800 businesses to deal with damages such as graffiti, broken windows, or other vandalism-related property damage.

• RFK may go third party: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., longtime Democrat and scion of the party’s most famous family, is currently running a primary challenge against Joe Biden, but he may soon announce his third-party candidacy. RFK Jr. entered the race back in April and has maintained roughly 20% of Democrat support in the polls, but he has repeatedly been frustrated by the DNC’s blatant moves to “rig” the primaries to favor Biden. As a result, speculation has mounted that Kennedy would launch a third-party bid. Indeed, on Friday he promised that on October 9 in Philadelphia he’ll make a “major announcement” to bring about “a sea change in American politics,” which appears to confirm this. If Kennedy does go third party, just how much longer will the DNC hold onto the unpopular, age-addled Biden?

• About those DEI hire stats… On Friday, we noted a rather jaw-dropping stat reported by Bloomberg, which claimed that 94% of S&P 100 companies’ new hires since the summer of 2020 were people of color. We could hardly believe it ourselves, and it turns out that shocking stat was unbelievable for good reason — it wasn’t true. The Daily Wire analyzed the data and found that demographic hiring numbers for 2021 had not changed much from previous years. The Wire found that of the new hires in S&P 100 companies, 46% went to whites, which is less than their 54% portion of the workforce at these companies. That is not new but merely follows a trend as the overall racial demographics of the country change. Bloomberg ended up with its eye-popping but misleading number by failing to account for the total number of two million jobs filled. There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

• Green subsidies: Just how much money is the green energy industry getting from the federal government? Well, the Biden administration quietly noted the number in a recently released 59-page report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). According to the report, from 2018 to 2022, the federal government gave out $183.3 billion in taxpayer subsides to the green energy industry. Significantly, over half of that total has been given out since Joe Biden took office. The green energy industry isn’t the only energy industry receiving taxpayer subsides, as the fossil fuel industry does as well, which Democrats and the Biden administration are quick to point out. However, the return cost of the subsides (“investments”) to the American taxpayer are not even in the same ballpark. For the amount of energy created nationwide by natural gas, its $2.3 billion in subsides last year equates to $0.05 per every million of British thermal units (MMBtu) produced. As for the solar industry, which received $7.5 billion in subsidies last year, it received $11.9 per MMBtu it generated. In other words, American taxpayers are increasingly paying more for less.

• Trans anthropology: The science must be stopped. That is effectively what has happened at the world’s largest anthropological conference, where a planned panel on skeleton identification was canceled due to “transgender” activists. The panel was advertised: “Sex identification whether an individual was male or female — using the skeleton is one of the most fundamental components in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology.” But since the notion that human sexuality is binary has become anathema to the radical Left, the Rainbow Mafia swooped in to demand that the “offending” science be banned. With cries of “transphobia,” the conference bowed to the pressure and pulled the panel.

Headlines

• Democrat Jamaal Bowman faces investigation, expulsion after pulling fire alarm before vote (National Review)

• Shutdown averted as Biden signs seven-week spending bill (Roll Call)

• Gaetz seeks Dem support to oust McCarthy (Free Beacon) | Some House Republicans seek to expel Gaetz pending report from Ethics Committee (Daily Wire)

• Student loan bills resume for 40 million Americans (CNBC)

• Kathy Hochul wants to limit migrants, says border is “too open” — New York governor had far different message about illegal immigration not long ago (Blaze Media)

• Donald Trump faces New York trial today for damages after judge finds fraud in real estate empire (USA Today)

• Merrick Garland claims DOJ does “not have one rule for Republicans and another rule for Democrats” (Daily Wire)

• Iranian official admits Islamic regime involved in ‘83 horror bombing that killed 220 Marines (RedState)

• Judge orders New York to dole out nearly half a million in legal fees to NRA after Supreme Court victory (Fox News)

• Keen sense of the obvious: Some Democrats fear Bidenomics branding is backfiring (Axios)

• Nobel in medicine goes to two scientists whose work enabled creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 (AP)

• Satire: Buffalo Guy kicking himself for not just pulling fire alarm to evacuate Congress (Babylon Bee)

• Policy: Why the latest continuing resolution changed more than you might think (National Review)

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