Cross-Examination

• Israel’s hostage deal: To the great relief of many Israeli families, a hostage-for-prisoner swap and a temporary cease-fire between Hamas cutthroats and the Israel Defense Forces is going forward. The cease-fire reportedly will begin tomorrow morning and will last four days. As Fox News reports: “Qatar’s government said in a statement last night that both sides ‘have agreed to this deal after weeks of intense negotiations’ and that it ‘led the mediation efforts in coordination with the United States and regional partners, for whom we express our gratitude.’” Egypt apparently also played a key role in the negotiations. But whereas Fox News reported yesterday that the 3:1 ratio would be hostages-to-prisoners, in fact it’ll be the reverse: For every hostage released by Hamas, Israel will release three Palestinian prisoners. Nearly 240 people are still being held by Hamas, and they include somewhere around 10 Americans. The volume of the initial transfer will be excruciatingly small: only 10 or so hostages will be released, and that tiny group is expected to be women and children. As for all the rest, more torment lies ahead, but with a glimmer of hope.

• The IRS postpones a middle class tax hike: Perhaps they didn’t want to rain on our Thanksgiving Day parade. Or perhaps the folks at Joe Biden’s Internal Revenue Service took a look at their boss’s abysmal polling numbers and figured they ought not add fuel to his presidential bonfire. In any case, as The Wall Street Journal reports, the most hated agency on the planet has pushed back the implementation of “a $600 reporting threshold for payments received via online platforms such as Venmo, eBay and Airbnb.” Recall that this new IRS revenue stream was crammed into Biden’s ill-conceived and misleadingly named American Rescue Plan. Recall, too, that the new $600 threshold for annual Form 1099-K reporting of transactions had originally been $20,000. What a mess. As the Journal rightly notes: “The $600 threshold would ensnare millions of Americans who occasionally use online platforms to sell household items or repay friends for a dinner. Cash wedding gifts received through peer-to-peer platforms might get reported too.” Apparently, Democrats think the real reason we’re nearly $34 trillion in debt is because folks who moonlight as Lyft drivers or who Vrbo their cabin via during the summer months are dodging their taxes. Oddly enough, Hunter Biden could not be reached for comment.

• Maybe we’re NOT doomed: In a bit of good news, CNBC has announced that it will be shuttering its climate desk. That’s right — no more full-time entity at the cable news outlet endlessly churning out climate change doom and gloom prognostications that strangely never seem to materialize. According to the media outlet, the reason for the decision is cost-cutting, which is a strange thing to say in light of the pending end of the world. Of course, the reality is the climate cult has little to with the climate and more to do with attacking capitalism in favor of socialism. It turns out that alarmist agenda-pushing isn’t paying the bills.

• Rich emitters: Speaking of the climate cult and capitalism, those at the top 1% of wealth also happen to be the biggest emitters of carbon emissions. According to a report from the left-leaning Oxfam, “The richest 1 percent of the world’s population produced as much carbon pollution in 2019 [as] the five billion people who made up the poorest two-thirds of humanity.” That should surprise no one since the most economically advanced nations have become so by developing efficient energy production made possible only by fossil fuels. Indeed, without fossil fuels, very few would be wealthy, and the vast majority of the world’s population would be relegated to live in dire poverty. While there are some wealthy elite hypocrites like John Kerry and Al Gore who deserve castigation for their outsized carbon footprint as they jet around the globe decrying the very fossil fuels that made their wealth possible, if it wasn’t for wealthy entrepreneurs, we would all be in a much worse shape.

• Feds targets faith-based trucking company: One of America’s largest trucking companies, Covenant Transport, has been hit with a $700,000 fine. Why is the Biden administration going after the faith-based company headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee? Well, according to the federal government, it’s due to Covenant Transport having supposedly engaged in “unfair hiring practices.” Evidently, the trucking company attentively follows the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which requires employers to preferentially hire American citizens over noncitizens. Furthermore, under a 1986 addition to the INA, employers are required to retain Employment Eligibility Verification for every employee on their payroll. Covenant Transport required all non-U.S. citizen employees to regularly provide updated Permanent Resident Cards or other official U.S. government documentations of immigration status in order to maintain their employment. The Biden administration is calling foul, calling it unfair discrimination when it’s really due diligence to the Rule of Law.

• Sexually deviant Thanksgiving parade: The annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will proceed as, er, normal through downtown Manhattan, but this year will feature the promotion of the LGBTQ agenda. Despite the objections of thousands, and a petition that garnered nearly 40,000 signatures calling on the parade to remove “this liberal nonsense,” no changes to the agenda will be made. The petition raised by One Million Moms states: “The non-binary and transgender extravaganza on display this Thanksgiving will be brought to you by Macy’s during their annually sponsored Thanksgiving Day Parade. Unless they are forewarned about it, this year’s holiday parade will potentially expose tens of millions of viewers at home to the liberal LGBTQ agenda.” While this is not the first year a self-described “non-binary” performer will be featured, the increased celebration of this gender-bending deviancy is alarming. So, maybe folks shouldn’t tune in to watch Macy’s parade this year; it would certainly save them and their children from having to view sexual deviancy on Thanksgiving Day.

• American Spirit — A Thanksgiving tale: It’s not unusual for folks to open up their Thanksgiving dinner table to others, especially those who have no place else to go for the holiday, but the story of two Arizona strangers — Wanda Dench and Jamal Hinton — is especially heartwarming. As Fox News reports, their story began in 2016, when Dench sent a text message meant for her grandson that instead went to Hinton. Thus, instead of inviting her grandson to Thanksgiving dinner, she invited a total stranger. “[You’re] not my grandma,” Hinton replied with a laughing emoji. Then, after Dench texted him a photo to “prove” she was his grandma, he sent her back a selfie of his own. If ever there was a case of mistaken identity, this was it. And yet, as Fox continues, Dench “asked if he could stop by for dinner anyway.” Dench then welcomed Hinton with open arms, and the two have been celebrating Thanksgiving together ever since.

Headlines

• House Republicans subpoena prosecutor in Hunter Biden investigation (National Review)

• Three of the trans people eulogized by the Biden administration died attacking innocent strangers (The Federalist)

• Woke museum claims notorious Roman emperor was transgender, will use female pronouns (Daily Wire)

• “Settled science”: Mask study published by NIH suggests N95 masks may expose wearers to dangerous level of toxic compounds linked to seizures and cancer (Daily Mail)

• Here we go again: Federal judge says Pennsylvania mail-in ballots should still count if dated incorrectly (NBC News)

• Federal appeals court strikes Maryland handgun rule (The Hill)

• Sam Altman to return as OpenAI CEO after his tumultuous ouster (Reuters)

• Ford to scale back planned $3.5 billion electric vehicle battery plant in Michigan (Washington Examiner)

• Biden administration gave $3 billion loan to solar company accused of scamming elderly (Washington Free Beacon)

• Humor: Millions of Americans excited to host ‘mostly peaceful’ protests on Thanksgiving (Genesius Times)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.