Cross-Examination

• Homeless in Biden’s economy: Homelessness has hit a record high of 650,000 people, “the highest number of people reported as experiencing homelessness on a single night” since the Department of Housing and Urban Development began tracking the data back in 2007. HUD reports that across the country homelessness has risen 12%, with Asian Americans seeing the biggest increase, up 40% since last year. When it comes to states, California leads the list with the highest percentage of unsheltered homeless at 68%, followed by Oregon at 64.6%. This is Bidenomics at work. Is it any wonder Democrats want to distance themselves from the term?

• Student loan borrowers miss first repayments: The COVID-era freeze on student loan repayments ended in September. However, according to the Department of Education, just 60%, or roughly 13 million borrowers, have made their first monthly payment. A whopping 40% have failed to begin repaying what they owe. The reason the underpayment rate is so high is thanks to Joe Biden’s efforts to push his loan cancellation gambit. Failure to repay now will not get one counted as delinquent until next September. Why September? Well, that’s a perfect time for a last-minute get-out-the-vote campaign issue for Biden, just two months before the 2024 presidential election.

• Iran is raising prices: The cost of everything will continue rising, thanks in part to Iran. The Yemeni Houthi militants funded by Iran have engaged in a campaign to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Using missiles and attack drones, the Houthis have broadened the focus of their targets beyond Western navies to now include attacks on commercial shipping. The result has been that large commercial shipping companies have elected to avoid the region entirely. Those avoiding the region include Maersk, MSC, and BP. The latter most recently joined in the decision to suspend shipping through the Red Sea, which will have a significant negative impact on the price of oil. And thanks to Joe Biden’s anti-fossil fuel agenda, events in the Middle East have a much greater impact on prices at the pump. This sheds a spotlight on the Biden administration’s abysmal foreign policy record, specifically with regard to coddling Iran. Rather than the U.S. making a stronger presence felt across the globe, American leadership has been falling behind under Biden, just as it did under Barack Obama.

• How bad has crime gotten under Joe Biden? It seems that there’s no honor in America these days — not even among thieves. We’ve documented the surge in violent crime under Joe Biden, and it’s no laughing matter. Indeed, the Democrat Party has a well-earned reputation as The Party of Crime. But still. A recent armed robbery in Commerce City, Colorado, went awry because the perps were foiled in mid-heist when someone — get this — stole their getaway car. The cops ultimately chased down two of the three suspects, and as the Commerce City Police Department posted on its Facebook page: “In an unexpected and ironic twist … as the trio was robbing the business … a fourth criminal stole their getaway vehicle … which may have already been stolen. We don’t know.” What’s the world coming to when a group of criminals can’t even count on a getaway car? Suffice it to say, we’re at a loss for words beyond what the cops already posted: “We can’t make this stuff up.”

• U.S. military at smallest size since before WWII: It’s not a good time to be short of military manpower, but that’s precisely what the Biden administration is facing due to an abject failure to meet its recruitment numbers. As the Military Times reports: “Under end strength levels outlined in the annual defense authorization bill passed by [Congress] … the total number of active-duty troops in the armed forces will drop to 1,284,500 in fiscal 2024. That’s down nearly 64,000 personnel in the last three years and the smallest total for America’s military since 1940, before the United States’ entry into World War II.” Since the end of 2020, the Army is down 8.4%, the Marines are down 4.9%, the Air Force is down 4%, and the Navy is down 2.9%. The Biden administration has been in a state of denial throughout this recruiting shortfall, claiming that the military’s newfound wokeness — its obsession with white supremacy and its insistence on paying for sex-change operations, for example — has nothing to do with it. We disagree. And so does General Thomas Spoehr.

• Good news: A win in Wisconsin against DEI indoctrination: Republicans in the purple state of Wisconsin have registered a big win against the promulgation of the neo-Marxist ideology that runs under the woke acronym DEI: “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Wisconsin Republican assembly speaker Robin Vos insightfully dubs it “division, exclusion, and indoctrination.” Republicans who control the state legislature demonstrated how to use their position as holders of the power of the purse to get Wisconsin Democrat Governor Tony Evers to agree to sign legislation that not only prevents the funding of DEI programs within the state’s university system but also abolishes an affirmative action faculty hiring program. Republicans accomplished this feat by tying the legislation to pay increases for all other state employees. Naturally, university officials originally balked, but Republicans held strong and, eventually, administrators and Evers capitulated in order to secure funding.

• The leftist agenda of our intel officials: It’s no secret that our intelligence services were weaponized by the Obama administration against Donald Trump. Nor is it a secret that the perpetrators of the Russia collusion hoax were never held accountable. Such is life in the Democrat-dominated DC swamp. And given that sad reality, it should come as no surprise that those same intelligence services are now pushing a leftist agenda. Former CIA agent and adjunct Georgetown professor John Gentry warns, “The politicization of the intelligence community, particularly the CIA, created a problem that threatens American security to this day.” In his new book, Neutering the CIA: Why U.S. Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-Term Consequences, Gentry also writes: “A new, dramatically stronger and damaging form of politicization — partisan, political activism willing to damage or destroy politically a sitting American president — had taken root in parts of the U.S. intelligence community. It dwarfs the politicization episodes of the past in magnitude and importance, and it promises to have lasting, negative consequences.” Here, we’re reminded of Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s chilling warning to then-President-elect Donald Trump in January 2017, after Trump had publicly criticized our nation’s intel efforts: “Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” It appears Schumer was right. The question for Trump and all other Republicans is: What are we prepared to do about it?

• A update on yesterday’s Confederate monument flap: Yesterday, we reported on our nation’s obsession with whitewashing its past, noting that a Confederate memorial in Arlington National Cemetery was scheduled to be removed in the coming days. The erasure is part of the Left’s push to eliminate what were intended to be unifying symbols of our past that some find offensive — namely, those that commemorate the losing side in the War of Northern Aggression. We have an interesting update, though: It seems that a Trump-nominated federal judge, Rossie Alston, on Monday halted the Biden administration’s plan to remove the Civil War Reconciliation Monument from Arlington. What’s even more interesting, though, is that Alston happens to be black. As our friends at Not the Bee quipped, we “look forward to the media telling us how this is racist!”

Headlines

• Greg Abbott signs bill making it a state crime to enter Texas illegally (National Review)

• Even Kamala Harris now viewed more favorably than Joe Biden as Dems panic over dismal ‘24 polls (New York Post) | 54% of Democrat voters want to replace Joe Biden as 2024 nominee (Breitbart)

• More bad news for Bud Light? Anheuser-Busch is facing a workers strike (Fox Business)

• Tennessee attorney general sues BlackRock for misleading investors about ESG agenda (Daily Wire)

• Ayanna Pressley introduces “Books Save Lives Act” to require “diverse” libraries (National Review)

• Twenty-six states that banned therapy for LGBT people upped suicide risks (The Federalist)

• “American Society of Magical Negroes” trailer sparks anger for saying “white people” are most dangerous animal (Fox News)

• Storied U.S. Steel to be acquired for more than $14 billion by Nippon Steel (AP)

• “Satire”: Proud parent installs “My kid didn’t go to Harvard” bumper sticker on car (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.