Cross-Examination

• Chevron’s big oil move: Big Oil isn’t buying into the green energy narrative of the future being all electric, powered entirely by renewables. Fossil fuels are still the most practical and rational option for powering economies of the world, and energy companies know this. This explains Chevron’s move on Monday to acquire Hess Corp. for $53 billion. This will increase Chevron’s assets in the Gulf of Mexico and North Dakota, but buying Hess also gives Chevron a 30% share in an area off the coast of Guyana, which is estimated to hold 11 billion barrels of oil and gas. Chevron’s move comes after ExxonMobil’s move last month to combine with Pioneer National Resources. Despite all the green government subsides meant to entice energy companies to develop more renewables, companies like BP and Shell are actually cutting back on wind and solar investments and pouring capital into fossil fuels because the returns are still higher and more sustainable.

• NYT backtracks on Gaza hospital false claim: Last week, The New York Times ran a story on its front page with the provocative headline, “Israeli Strike Kills Hundreds in Hospital, Palestinians Say.” That story (and others like it) went on to claim that 500 people had been killed by the attack and included a picture of a destroyed building. Israel was quick to deny the claim. The original story failed to cite that those making the dubious claims of Israel being responsible were Hamas officials. As more information came to light, including the fact that the image of the destroyed building the Times posted was not the Al-Ahli Hospital and that sources of the claim were actually Hamas, the Times has walked back its initial claim. Now the Times is reporting that it “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas” and acknowledges that “the report left readers with an incorrect impression about what was known and how credible the account was.” You don’t say.

• Qatar’s complicity in terrorism: Not only does the Middle Eastern nation of Qatar supply luxury housing for Hamas leadership, but the oil-rich country’s monarchy is also actively supporting the terror organization by seeking to give it international legitimacy. This effort at worldwide legitimacy comes via the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media Network, whose cable channel reaches some 350 million households in 150 countries. Al Jazeera’s message has been intentionally shrouded from Western audiences, but it demonizes Israel while running favorable propaganda regarding Hamas and the Palestinian cause. Remember that anytime the Biden administration points to Qatar as helping do anything.

• China steals more info than all other countries combined: China is infamous for its history of intellectual property theft. But it has proved difficult to quantify Beijing’s pilfering. What has been known is that China’s stealing has worsened. Recently, the heads of five Western intelligence agencies known as the “Five Eyes” were interviewed by CBS News’s “60 Minutes.” Included among the five were FBI Director Christopher Wray and the United Kingdom’s MI5 Director Ken McCallum. Wray observed that China presents the number one “threat of this generation.” Beijing’s massive stealing apparatus is occurring with “everything from Fortune 100 companies, all to smaller startups,” he noted. “We’re talking about agriculture, biotech, healthcare, robotics, aviation, academic research. We probably have somewhere in the order of 2,000 active investigations that are just related to the Chinese government’s effort to steal information.” While the five observed that all countries engage in espionage to some degree, China has taken it to a whole new level. Wray asserted that China has the biggest hacking program in the world — “bigger than every other major nation combined.” And China has “stolen more of our personal and corporate data than every nation, big or small, combined.” That’s a lot of stealing.

• UAW expands strike: In its efforts to press for more concessions from the Big Three automakers, on Monday the United Auto Workers expanded its strike that has lasted over a month. The latest workers to walk off the job are from the Stellantis assembly plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Roughly 6,800 workers are now striking at that plant, which produces the company’s best-selling vehicle, Ram 1500 trucks. UAW claims that of the Big Three, Stellantis has presented the worst offer in the ongoing collective bargaining negotiations. Thus far across the Big Three, 40,000 workers are now striking, making up 26% of the three companies’ workforce.

• NewsGuard sued: On Monday, the Consortium of Independent Journalism filed a lawsuit against the federal government and NewsGuard, the self-appointed arbiter of “trustworthy” news media organizations. Consortium News alleges that the U.S. government has conspired with NewsGuard in order to defame non-legacy news outlets and in so doing is in violation of the First Amendment. The suit says that NewsGuard and the government “are engaged in a pattern and practice of labelling, stigmatizing and defaming American media organizations that oppose or dissent from American foreign and defense policy, particularly as to Russia and Ukraine.” We in are humble shop can attest to NewsGuards’s underhanded and disingenuous rating system that is designed not to ensure factual accuracy in what is reported but to be used as a mechanism to downgrade and ultimately silence news outlets whose viewpoints it doesn’t like. Viewpoint discrimination is actually what NewsGuard engages in, not news reporting accuracy.

Headlines

• Crowded GOP House speaker election gets underway on Tuesday with eight candidates (Just the News)

• Former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis becomes third co-defendant to take plea deal, plead guilty in Georgia election-interference case (Not the Bee)

• Jean-Pierre dismisses anti-Semitism concerns, says Muslims are seeing “disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks” (American Greatness)

• Two more hostages released from Gaza (Daily Wire)

• Cornell professor who called Hamas attacks “exhilarating” takes leave of absence (College Fix)

• Israel removes Greta Thunberg from school curriculum over anti-Israel post (Jerusalem Post)

• Derek Chauvin attorney breaks down conviction appeal to Supreme Court (Daily Wire)

• Coca-Cola quietly removes BLM references from website (Daily Caller)

• Americans are overdue with their car payments at highest rate in nearly 30 years (Forbes)

• Rite Aid, CVS, and Walgreens will shut more than 1,500 stores due to crime and competition, leaving millions without access to healthcare (Daily Mail)

• Nearly one million residents left California in 2022 fueled by cost of living (Just the News)

• “Calamitous effect”: Population rate decline in the U.S. triggers economic alarms (Fox News)

• Tennessee school put would-be shooter in classroom, told parents to become left-wing activists if they objected (Daily Wire)

• Off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot Joseph Emerson hit with 83 counts of attempted murder after allegedly trying to turn off engines mid-flight (New York Post)

• GROUNDBREAKING: Glamour’s “Women of the Year” are all women (Free Beacon)

• Policy: If Obama-Biden healthcare policies are so good, why do costs keep rising? (Washington Examiner)

• Satire: FBI races past protesters screaming “Kill the Jews” to arrest woman praying silently outside abortion clinic (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.