Cross-Examination

• Biden sends War Powers notification to Congress: Call it a shot across the bow from the Biden administration to Iran in the form of retaliatory U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria targeting militia groups affiliated with the Iranian regime. Over the weekend, Joe Biden officially notified Congress via a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Pro Tempore President Patty Murray of the targeted strikes that he ordered earlier and, as The Washington Times reports, vowed to “take further action” should U.S. bases and troops in the region come under additional attack. “I directed the strikes,” said Biden, “in order to protect and defend our personnel, to degrade and disrupt the ongoing series of attacks against the United States and our partners, and to deter Iran and Iran-backed militia groups from conducting or supporting further attacks on United States personnel and facilities.” We suspect these two measures were also intended to gain the attention of Turkey’s Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose recent anti-Israel comments seemed unbecoming for the head of state of a NATO ally.

• More prepping for war: As the war between Israel and Hamas threatens to become a broader regional conflict, our government is taking ominous steps. For example, the Commerce Department reported Friday that it stopped issuing export licenses for most civilian firearms and ammo. As Reuters reports, the stoppage is effective for 90 days for all non-governmental users and lists “national security and foreign policy interests” as the reason. Commerce said it will conduct an “urgent review [of] the risk of firearms being diverted to entities or activities that promote regional instability, violate human rights, or fuel criminal activities.” According to Johanna Reeves, a lawyer who specializes in export controls and firearms, the measure covers most guns and ammo that could be bought in a U.S. gun store. Perhaps not surprisingly, Commerce stated in a brief Q&A communication that Israel and Ukraine are exempt from the stoppage, “as well as some other close allies,” perhaps including NATO countries.

• Scranton Joe’s starvation diet: We’ve watched with bemusement as Joe Biden runs his reelection campaign by promoting “Bidenomics” as a glorious feature rather than a ruinous bug. While it’s certainly true that, as James Carville once said, “It’s the economy, stupid,” it appears that our nation’s 46th president is taking the “stupid” part literally. Just the News’s John Solomon assesses the devastating impact that Bidenflation has had on our nation’s economic well-being and dubs it the “Bidenomics Boomerang.” We can’t disagree. As the report notes, “The number of Americans suffering from hunger and food insecurity exploded by more than 10 million under President Joe Biden, according to a U.S. Agriculture Department report … that provided fresh evidence of inflation’s impact [on] a basic staple of life.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had a similar take last week when he reacted to the “mirage” of the Q3 GDP report: “Bidenflation is killing the average American’s bottom line, and things will only get worse in the months ahead as credit dries up and gas prices increase even further because of Biden’s anti-energy policies.” As our Nate Jackson quips, “About 35% of Americans might benefit from intermittent fasting, but this is ridiculous.”

• Federal office building ghost towns: The Government Accountability Office recently released its survey of two dozen federal agencies’ use of their office buildings this year and found an astounding average vacancy rate of 80%. The agency with the highest office vacancy rate was the Agriculture Department, coming in at 90% empty. None of the agencies surveyed topped 50% occupancy. Ever since the pandemic, telework has effectively become the entrenched practice within much of the federal government. With so many nearly empty and half-filled government office buildings, one would think that office building sharing between different agencies would be a responsible cost-cutting measure. However, as GAO Acting Director David Marroni observed, “One official said their leadership is reluctant to share headquarters space with other agencies because it could lower their perceived standing as a cabinet-level agency.”

• GOP candidates vow support for Israel: Even The New York Times suspected it wouldn’t be politics as usual. “When Republican officials, lawmakers and candidates gather in Las Vegas,” the Times reported on Thursday, “they will come together at a moment of unique peril for Israel and, many attendees believe, for American Jewry.” Sure enough, on Saturday in Las Vegas, the Republican Jewish Coalition held its Annual Leadership Summit, and Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott, Chris Christie, and Doug Burgum were there. As the Times noted, the event has been “a routine stop on the presidential primary trail, an opportunity for would-be presidents to demonstrate their foreign-policy credentials while plying donors with requisite one-liners.” But this year’s event wasn’t that. “Today is too serious a day — too serious a day and too serious a moment for pettiness,” Christie said. Donald Trump seemed serious, rightly noting, as the Washington Examiner reports, “that crooked Joe surrendered my tough sanctions [against Iran] almost immediately,” thereby allowing the country to boost its wealth via oil sales to countries that no longer respect the United States.

• Biden denies RFK Jr. a Secret Service detail: Despite a June report from the Secret Service concluding that presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s campaign was at an elevated “risk for adverse attention,” Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security denied his request for Secret Service protection. Kennedy said that after he requested a Secret Service detail, “it went 88 days, and then we got a rejection letter from [DHS Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas.” Well, last week a crazed individual made two attempts to break into Kennedy’s home, proving RFK’s request for protection was no irrational concern. Indeed, Biden’s refusal to oblige appears to be entirely politically motived over Kennedy’s decision to challenge him for the Democrat primary, and then his later decision to run as an independent.

• Two NJ Dems charged with election fraud: New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin last week raised new charges of election fraud against two Democrats, Paterson City Council President Alex Mendez and former 2021 Plainfield mayoral candidate Henrilynn Ibezim. The attorney general’s office said: “We allege that Mendez and his associates unlawfully collected ballots and tampered with ballots to give him an unfair edge in the race for the 3rd Ward seat on the Paterson City Council. He then allegedly set about undermining our investigation into his and his campaign workers’ unlawful activities." In Ibezim’s case, the AG’s office said he "has been charged with election fraud and other crimes after allegedly bringing a trash bag stuffed with nearly 1,000 bogus voter registration applications to the post office to mail them to the Union County Commissioner of Registration.”

• Scotland is too white: According to Scotland’s current First Minister Humza Yousaf, the country is too white. Yousaf, who is a Muslim of Pakistani descent, recently went on a tirade on the floor of Parliament, blasting the fact that nearly all the positions of government leadership in the country are held by white individuals. So, in a country whose indigenous people group are by any definition white — indeed, the whitest of white — and currently make up 96% of the population, why would one not expect whites to be the majority reflected in the halls of government? Would Yousaf dare to level the same criticism at Japan for its government leaders being 100% Asian? Or what about the country of his own ethnic origin — would any of Pakistan’s governmental officials be classified as white? What Yousaf expressed is straight-up anti-white racism. The highest government official in Scotland is effectively telling the vast majority of the country that he is opposed to them based on race.

• New York City exports illegals: So much for New York City’s boasting about being a “sanctuary city” for illegal aliens. All it takes is a few thousand of the millions who have been streaming through Joe Biden’s de facto open border entering the Big Apple and Democrat city leaders have begun crying uncle. But Mayor Eric Adams’s cries for help have effectively gone ignored. Additionally, the mayor’s appeals that migrants stop coming because NYC has no more room have also landed on deaf ears. “When you are out of room, that means you’re out of room,” Adams recently stated. “There’s no more room. That’s where we are right now.” So, what’s NYC’s solution? Show them the door. NYC has enacted a “reticketing” plan in which illegals are given a plane ticket to somewhere else — anywhere else, it seems, as some have flown as far as Morocco. Some sanctuary.

• Assessing the Maine massacre: Robert Card was found dead Friday night, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot, and local residents can now begin to pick up the pieces. “We were sort of in limbo there for 48 hours,” said former Lewiston Mayor Jim Howaniec, “which really isn’t that long of a time, but of course it seemed like 48 years while it was going on.” Now, too, the hand-wringing begins. How, for instance, could a guy who was committed for two weeks this summer for mental health reasons have been allowed access to the weapons he used in last week’s rampage, which killed 18 and wounded 13 others? As the Associated Press reports, Maine officials claim they sent a statewide alert about Card after the U.S. Army told police that he’d been making threats to his Army reserve unit. Apparently, the alert prompted local police to visit Card’s house, but, well, they said he wasn’t home. Police said that while they did increase patrols, there was no specific threat involving the guy who’d told Army staff at Camp Smith that he’d been “hearing voices” and had thoughts about “hurting other soldiers.” It appears that Card legally purchased the rifle he used in the massacre just days before he was hospitalized in mid-July.

Headlines

• Hamas is preventing 600 Americans from leaving Gaza, U.S. official says (National Review)

• Tattoo artist who became a face of bloody Israeli war beheaded by Hamas terrorists after abduction (New York Post)

• Mobs in Russia yelling “Allahu Akbar” hunt down Jews, storm airport after flight from Israel arrives (Daily Wire)

• Cornell University sends police to Jewish center after violent, anti-Semitic messages posted online (AP)

• Former Vice President Mike Pence ends his presidential campaign (AP)

• GM reaches tentative deal with UAW, ending strikes at Detroit automakers after six weeks (CNBC)

• IRS policy allowing surprise visits on taxpayers limited after Judiciary Republicans’ probing (Fox News)

• Biden issues sweeping executive order on AI (The Hill)

• Woke schools axing kids’ Halloween parties over “inequality” (New York Post)

• Disney delays release of live-action “Snow White” after star criticizes “weird” original (National Review)

• Federal judge blocks Colorado’s abortion drug reversal ban (Daily Signal)

• California’s gun ban allowed to continue by appeals court (Epoch Times)

• Worldwide study shows 1 in 4 people are suffering from extreme loneliness (Not the Bee)

• Humor: Newsom shows solidarity with Biden by also falling on face in front of world leaders (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.