Cross-Examination

• Poor, poor, pitiful Hunter speaks! Hunter Biden exposed himself this morning on Capitol Hill, taking to a microphone and railing against “MAGA Republicans” for having unfairly picked on him. “For six years,” he whined, “I’ve been the target of the unrelenting Trump attack machine shouting, ‘Where’s Hunter?’ Well, here’s my answer: ‘I am here.’” He was there, alright, but only long enough to denounce those MAGA Republicans. Then he disappeared, skipping his agreed-upon deposition before the House Oversight Committee. We suppose this qualifies as acceptable behavior for a Biden, but only because they’ve set the bar so low. Setting aside the hookers and the blow and the money-grubbing and the narcissistic nude selfies and the schtupping of his deceased brother’s wife, Hunter recently took to a podcast to blast his GOP critics as “motherf***ers” who are “trying to destroy a presidency” and “trying to kill me.” This is what a shrink might call projection. This morning, with attorney Abbe Lowell at his side, he gave us a more carefully worded screed: “Let me state as clearly as I can: My father was not financially involved in my business, not as a practicing lawyer, not as a board member of Burisma. Not my partnership with a Chinese private businessman, not in my investments at home nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist.” He went on to say how proud he is of his degrees from Georgetown and Yale Law School, and how mean his MAGA Republican critics have been to impugn his character and invade his privacy and mock his struggle with addiction. “There is no fairness or decency in what these Republicans are doing,” he continued. “They explain naked photos of me during an Oversight hearing.” Strangely, he neglected to mention that he’s now under multiple indictments from the Biden Justice Department. There’s an old legal expression that Hunter and his legal team seem to be employing here: When you have the facts, you pound the facts. When you have the law, you pound the law. And when you have neither, you pound the table.

• Israel snubs Biden’s plan: While Joe Biden likes to talk of bringing Unity™, what he has done during his time in office is encourage more division not only across the country but even within his own party. Is it any wonder then that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants little to do with the Biden administration’s postwar plan for Gaza? On Tuesday, the two leaders clashed as Biden insisted that Israel cannot be allowed to control Gaza and that an eventual two-state solution must be the long-term goal. Biden even threw Israel under the bus by claiming, “They’re starting to lose [U.S. and European Union] support by indiscriminate bombing.” Netanyahu quickly rejected Biden’s plan: “After the great sacrifice of our civilians and our soldiers, I will not allow the entry into Gaza of those who educate for terrorism, support terrorism, and finance terrorism. … I will not allow Israel to repeat the mistake of Oslo.” That was a reference to the 1993 Oslo Accords that established the Palestinian Authority, which was subsequently overtaken by Hamas in 2007. Netanyahu is right to be wary of embracing any deal that offers the promise of a two-state solution, which the Palestinians have never agreed to pursue. Furthermore, he sees a Democrat Party divided over support for Israel versus Gaza and cannot trust that the Biden administration would actually prioritize Israel’s sovereignty rights.

• Ford halves Lightning production: Beginning in January, Ford Motor Company will effectively cut the production rate of its all-electric F-150 Lightning trucks in half. Ford’s electric vehicle plant in Dearborn, Michigan, where it makes the Lightning, will drop its production of the truck from 3,200 per week to roughly 1,600 a week. The reason? The basic economic principles of supply and demand. According to a Ford spokesman, “We’ll continue to match production with customer demand.” Ford’s production cut comes on the heels of the automaker canceling some $12 billion in EV investments. While Ford has continued to see sales of its Lightning grow, hitting a record high in November of 4,400 sold, it’s far from a significant percentage of its overall truck sales. Through the third quarter of this year, Ford had sold 561,110 F-Series trucks, and of those, combined with October and November sales, just 20,365 were Lightnings.

• COP28 waffles on fossil fuels: Earlier today at the COP28 Summit in Dubai, government ministers from nearly 200 countries agreed to a deal that calls for a movement away from fossil fuels. It was a lukewarm victory for the green movement, especially after a previous proposal went down in flames amid heated and widespread backlash. As CNBC reports, “The latest proposal published by the UAE earlier on Wednesday called for ‘transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.’” Still, a funny thing happened on our way to a fossil fuel-free future. As PJ Media’s Rick Moran writes, “Squabbling delegates … have failed to agree on a plan to phase out fossil fuels, leaving the issue in limbo and calling into question the entire COP process as a venue to deal with climate change.” That phaseout plan was what the greens were looking for, but sanity seems to have prevailed. At least for the time being.

• Sununu endorses Haley: Nikki Haley reeled in New Hampshire’s biggest endorsement when the state’s popular and charismatic governor finally made it official: “We are all in on Nikki Haley!” said Chris Sununu at a raucous campaign event yesterday. Haley, though, has a lot of ground to make up. Forty days away from the primary, she’s polling at just under 19% in the Granite State, well behind Donald Trump at 44% but comfortably ahead of Chris Christie at 13% and Ron DeSantis at a woeful 9%. It’s no surprise that Sununu didn’t endorse Trump. He doesn’t like the former president, a reality that might have something to do with his family’s decades-long connection to the Bushes. “People know that we have a country to save,” said Haley at a New Hampshire diner this morning, “and they know that it’s time for a new generational leader. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a ‘Live Free or Die’ country?” Sununu added: “This isn’t just, ‘Let’s get behind a candidate that can win.’ That’s obvious. This is really getting behind the best-qualified person to be president of the United States.” What he meant to say, of course, was that Haley is the best-qualified person besides Trump. And we’re not so sure Haley can win — not when she’s trailing Trump nationally by 48 points. Haley, however, touts her head-to-head numbers against the decrepit incumbent, Joe Biden, noting that she’s beating him in one poll by 17 points. But that cuts both ways: What centrists and moderates find appealing in a candidate is often at odds with what primary voters find appealing. And primary voters are the ones who decide presidential primaries.

• What the heck happened to Georgia? A stunning new battleground poll from CNN shows Donald Trump leading Joe Biden 50-40 in reliably blueish Michigan, a state Biden carried 51-48 in 2020. It’s the latest in a steady stream of bad polling news that has the Democrats in full freakout mode. The same CNN poll, however, showed something equally stunning in the other direction: Whereas Trump leads Biden by 10 points in Michigan, his lead in normally red Georgia is just half that, 49-44. So what gives? Has Georgia really become less reliably red than Michigan? Consider Georgia’s blue creep during the past quarter-century: Trump lost Georgia by 0.2% in 2020 after having won it by 5% in 2016. Romney won it by 8% in 2012, McCain won it by 5% in 2008, and Bush won it by 16% in 2004 and by 12% in 2000. Perhaps part of that trend is due to Georgia having swapped spit with Hollywood in recent years, thereby attracting a more “progressive” cohort of voters. And perhaps part of it is due to the undoing of the Great Migration of the 20th century — the return of blacks from the Rust Belt back to the South as economic decay afflicts the blue states of the Midwest and the Northeast while job opportunities abound in the red states of the Sun Belt. Another possible explanation for Michigan’s shift is the “throw the bums out” attitude of citizens under Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer, while Georgia prospers under the steady and competent Republican governorship of Brian Kemp.

• New York Democrats steal seats: New York Democrats have successful orchestrated a district map coup, as the state’s Court of Appeals agreed to throw out the current court-ordered map and order the redrawing of a new one. The trouble is, the new redrawn redistricting map will have to pass New York’s Democrat-controlled legislature. Back in 2014, the Empire State passed a constitutional amendment that banned the partisan gerrymandering of election districts and created a 10-member bipartisan redistricting commission. However, when the commission deadlocked over a new district map, the Democrat-run state legislature stepped in and gerrymandered its own redistricting map. With the court ruling, Democrats are now in position to effectively guarantee that their gerrymandered map — likely resulting in Republicans losing at least four House seats — will be the one agreed to, at least temporarily. This is a coup since the court effectively green-lighted the Democrats’ map even as the issue works its way through the appellate courts. Though the Democrats’ gerrymandered redistricting map will likely be thrown out in the end, it will be too late for a change before the 2024 election.

• Wisconsin pro-life center firebomber arrested: Last year, a pro-life center in Madison, Wisconsin, was firebombed by a member of the militant pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge. DNA evidence at the scene led to the arrest of a 29-year-old biochemist by the name of Hridindu Sankar Roychowdhury, who eventually pleaded guilty to the crime. Roychowdhury is now facing a minimum of five years to a maximum of 20 years in prison. He is set to be sentenced in February. Roychowdhury should be classified as a domestic terrorist since the DOJ’s National Security head Matthew Olen observed that he had “used an incendiary device in violation of federal law in connection with his efforts to terrorize and intimidate a private organization.” There have been more than 100 attacks on pro-life centers and organizations across the country since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, but so far the only pro-abortionist charged with any of these crimes is Roychowdhury.

Headlines

• House GOP advances impeachment inquiry resolution, teeing up vote (The Hill)

• Biden’s latest tall tale involves a brain aneurysm, a helicopter, and Ronald Reagan (Daily Wire)

• One-in-five mail-in voters admit they cheated in 2020 election (Rasmussen)

• Biden admin sends billions to California’s over-budget, behind-schedule “train to nowhere” (Fox News)

• Inflation slowed to a 3.1% annual rate in November (CNBC)

• ADL reports staggering 337% increase in anti-Semitic incidents (Hot Air)

• Virginia Democrat featured in streamed sex acts online says she’s the victim (Fox News)

• Texas woman denied abortion of baby with fetal anomaly leaves state to obtain one (Daily Wire)

• Hamas officials begin to flee foreign countries amid fears that Israel is about to kill them (Daily Wire)

• Humor: With Alex Jones returning to X, journalists concerned they’ll no longer be only source of misinformation (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.