Cross-Examination

• As many as 200 feds at the Capitol on J6? Someday, there’ll be a good, honest book written on the FBI’s involvement in the events of January 6, 2021. But it won’t be written by a Trump-hating Democrat, and it won’t be written by a bureaucratic, pencil-pushing stooge like FBI Director Chris Wray, who’s done nothing but stonewall House and Senate Republicans in their quest for the truth. We learned long ago that the FBI was involved. New York Times national security correspondent Matt Rosenberg made that clear long ago during an unguarded moment with Project Veritas. But we’ve yet to learn how many agents and other assets were involved, and to what extent. Now, though, a U.S. congressman is suggesting that the number is much higher than any of us thought. “We believe that there were easily 200 FBI undercover assets operating in the crowd, outside the Capitol, embedded into groups that entered the Capitol or provoked entry of the Capitol,” said Louisiana Republican Clay Higgins. Let that sink in. Higgins, who himself has a law enforcement background, made that revelation during a recent interview with Tucker Carlson. More than a year ago, Higgins put the question to Wray: “Did you have confidential human sources dressed as Trump supporters inside the Capitol on January 6 prior to the doors being opened?” To which Wray ducked and dodged and weaved and refused to answer. To which a disgusted Carlson replied, “What a sleazy, repulsive, little authoritarian liar Chris Wray is.” What Director Wray doesn’t seem to understand is that his lack of transparency only adds fuel to the conspiratorial fire, such as it is. The American people deserve to know the truth about what happened that day.

• Nearly a thousand carjackings in DC: The nation’s capital experienced 959 carjackings in 2023, double the total of the year prior. Back in 2019, Washington, DC, reported 152 carjackings. To make matters worse, 65% of these carjackings were committed by individuals under the age of 18. Unfortunately, DC’s growing crime problem isn’t limited to carjackings. The city hit a two-decade high in homicides with 274 people killed, which represents a 36% increase over the year before. Robberies jumped 67% in 2023, totaling 3,470. Vehicle thefts jumped by 82% with 6,829 cars stolen. Even relatively uncommon crimes such as arson saw a significant jump last year with 11 cases reported. There were just four reported arson cases in 2022. DC’s crime problem is what embracing leftist governing policies gets you, where the biggest concern is not holding individuals accountable to the law but pursuing social justice race-based equity outcomes. And it doesn’t look like things will get any better in 2024; just five days into the new year, 53 cars were reported stolen in DC.

• Credit card crisis: While Joe Biden and his cohorts in the Leftmedia are disingenuously attempting to convince Americans that the economy is doing just fine, the data shows just the opposite is the case. One troubling metric is that of Americans’ credit card debt. A worrying 49% of credit card holders are now carrying a balance month to month. That’s up from 39% in 2021, when Biden “rescued” America. Of those carrying a monthly credit card debt, 58%, or roughly 56 million people, have held that debt for over a year. That is up from 50% last year. U.S. credit card debt now totals over $1 trillion. Bankrate Senior Industry analyst Ted Rossman explains: “Over the past two years, Americans’ credit card balances have skyrocketed 40 percent, according to the New York Fed. Most cardholders’ rates have risen five-and-a-quarter percentage points during that span as a result of the Fed’s rate hikes meant to combat inflation.” In other words, credit card debt is getting more costly.

• Americans cut streaming services: Another sign that the economy is not as rosy as the Biden administration claims is seen in Americans’ entertainment consumption. The number of Americans cutting down on subscriptions to streaming services rose to 6.3% in November, up from 5.1% the year before. As the major streaming services, including the likes of Netflix and Apple TV+, have raised their monthly subscription rates, the number of customers trimming down on major subscriptions has increased from 15% two years ago to roughly 25%. When the cost of everything rises, people naturally pull back their spending on the nonessentials.

• The looming corporate office crisis: Next time you’re in a big city, take a moment to scan the horizon for tall buildings. What you see is office space — lots of it — and since the COVID-19 pandemic, this space has been largely uninhabited. Nearly 20% of it is unoccupied, in fact, the most since 1979. The Daily Mail reports on the possible consequences: “Billions of dollars in loans on office buildings that are about to come due could play havoc with the US economy after interest rates soared. About $117 billion worth is expected to be due this year and needs to be repaid or refinanced, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. A big chunk of it is at risk of defaulting and costing banks and developers huge sums, sending some into insolvency.” Such is the state of affairs in our gig economy, whose hallmarks are freelance and temporary workers and accommodating work-from-home arrangements — none of which is conducive to heading into the office each day. Will this threaten the current economy? It’s hard to say. But, as the Mail continues, “The prospect of a widespread default and subsequent dips in demand could stifle construction and development in major US cities — many of which are still struggling to recover in the aftermath of the pandemic.”

• William Penn saved from cancellation — for now: The whitewashing work of American history by the Biden administration continues apace in Philadelphia these days, where a statue of the city’s founder and the Keystone State’s namesake, William Penn, may be removed. As Just the News reports, “The National Parks Service says it is rehabilitating Philadelphia’s Welcome Park to ensure it is ‘more welcoming, accurate, and inclusive’ for visitors, and part of that plan includes removing a statue of the city’s founder, William Penn.” The Parks Service also aimed to remove the model of Penn’s home known as the Slate Roof House, which was built at Welcome Park’s current location and which was named for the ship, the Welcome, which Penn took from his native England to America in 1682. Penn was a writer, a religious thinker, and an influential Quaker, and he was known for supporting good relations with local Native Americans. For now, at least, the plan has been retracted, but iconoclastic leftists never do seem to quit.

• Fani Willis affair? According to a recent court filing from Donald Trump’s former campaign official Michael Roman, Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade “have been engaged in an improper, clandestine personal relationship during the pendency of this case, which has resulted in the special prosecutor, and, in turn, the district attorney, profiting significantly from this prosecution at the expense of the taxpayers.” Willis, who is prosecuting Trump for election interference, hired Wade as the special prosecutor. Roman accuses Willis of misconduct due to her “improper” romantic relationship with Wade, and he argues this makes the indictment of Trump “fatally defective” and that the case against Trump should therefore be thrown out. Roman further charges that Willis’s choice of Wade is a violation of the law because she did not get approval for his hire from the Fulton Board of Commissioners. If Roman’s allegations are proven true, this could result in the case against Trump being thrown out — just as it should be on the merits.

• The AARP-AMAC battle: Recently on Fox News, we’ve seen some interesting advertisements from AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons. We don’t mean to say that the content of the ads is interesting, only that the conciliatory language is. “You may not always agree with AARP,” the ads acknowledge, before adding a “but” and then encouraging conservative viewers to go against their self-interest and join the increasingly left-wing organization. And make no mistake, AARP is a left-wing organization. As The Federalist’s Mark Hemingway writes, “Though AARP was supposed to represent a large and politically diverse cross-section of older Americans, its transformation into an overtly partisan Democrat organization is hard to deny.” He continues, telling us all we need to know about AARP’s radicalism: “Recently, AARP lobbied heavily for the Biden administration’s disastrous and ironically named ‘Inflation Reduction Act.’ AARP’s biggest congressional critic, Sen. Rand Paul, recently noted that of AARP’s 94 congressional lobbying events during debate over the Inflation Reduction Act, only one was held in support of a Republican officeholder. The rest were for Democrats.” On the bright side, AARP is getting some competition from the Right — from AMAC, the Association of Mature American Citizens. AMAC’s dues-paying membership of 2.2 million members is dwarfed by AARP’s claimed membership of 38 million, but that gap should continue to close as more seniors begin paying attention to the politics.

Headlines

• Biden compares Trump and his supporters to “defeated Confederates” in South Carolina speech (Daily Wire) | Congregants at Mother Emanuel AME Church chant “FOUR MORE YEARS!” to Biden. Is this that Christian Nationalism I’ve heard about? (Not the Bee)

• Biden not considering firing Lloyd Austin following mysterious hospitalization (Washington Examiner) | House Republican announces bid to impeach Austin (Daily Wire)

• Bill Ackman lights up colleges and media in fiery posts after wife targeted for plagiarism (RedState)

• Trump files flurry of motions seeking to dismiss Georgia election charges (Daily Caller)

• Epstein accuser claims pedophile had sex tapes of Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew, and Richard Branson (New York Post)

• Biden administration issues rule that could curb “gig” work, contracting (CNBC)

• Joe Biden is producing more oil than Donald Trump did (Newsweek)

• China likely dethroned Japan as world’s top auto exporter in 2023 (Reuters)

• Navy service member who sold secrets to China sentenced to just 27 months in prison (Daily Wire)

• Reuters and AP “journalists” live-streamed themselves encouraging Gazans to invade Israel (RedState)

• Senior Hezbollah commander killed in alleged Israeli strike as border tensions mount (Times of Israel) | Biden admin warns Israel against taking major military action against Hezbollah (Daily Wire)

• “Satire”: DOJ sues Texas saying it’s against the law to pass a law to enforce the law (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.