Cross-Examination

• Ramaswamy suspends his campaign: When 38-year-old Vivek Ramaswamy, the Ohio-born son of Indian immigrants, announced his candidacy for president last February, he had exactly zero name recognition. And, as he conceded, a funny-sounding name to boot. What a difference a year makes. Yesterday, after finishing fourth in the Iowa caucuses but having outlasted bigger name candidates such as South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the biotech entrepreneur suspended his campaign and announced that he was throwing his support behind yesterday’s big winner, Donald Trump. The endorsement was a magnanimous and party-first act, given that Trump had dismissed Ramaswamy as “not MAGA” on the eve of the Iowa caucuses. As Fox News reports, Ramaswamy “had completed the ‘Full Grassley,’ twice, meaning he had visited all of Iowa’s 99 counties at least two times. And he held more campaign events than any other candidate running in the Hawkeye State.” Ramaswamy also stirred the pot, denouncing wokeness, throwing sharp elbows, and challenging the establishment wisdom on a number of issues. Ramaswamy deserves credit for introducing a different part of the electorate to Republican ideas, and we suspect he’ll be an interesting voice in party politics for years to come. As for what’s next, he’s expected to be in New Hampshire by day’s end for a rally with Donald Trump.

• How low can Joe go? A new ABC News/Ipsos poll has Scranton Joey plumbing the historical depths of incumbency, with an approval rating of just 33% against a whopping 58% disapproval. That 33% is the lowest number for an incumbent in more than 15 years, dating back to the end of George W. Bush’s second term. We’re wondering: How does a guy win reelection when he’s 25 points underwater? “The American people know Joe Biden’s age,” says Michael Tyler, Biden’s campaign communications director, and “with that age comes wisdom [sic], comes experience [sic], comes judgment [sic].” Whatever gets him through the night, we suppose. Digging more deeply into the poll, we find this statement: “Joe Biden has the mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively as president.” Only 28% agree with it, while a stunning 69% disagree. Can anyone imagine that number getting better for Biden in the next 10 months, as opposed to worse? As they say, he’s not getting any younger. “It’s not how old he is,” said former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, “it’s what he can do. [Iowa Senator] Chuck Grassley is in his 90s. He still gets out and runs every day. His mind is sharp as a tack. I care less about the chronological age than I do the capacity. And when the person is at the podium and finishes his speech, and he can’t figure out which way to go even though there are arrows on the floor pointing him in the direction he’s supposed to walk off the stage, that gives me concern.”

• Why is Nikki Haley so popular with Biden Democrats? Ron DeSantis noted a truly stunning finding from a late-breaking NBC News/Des Moines Register poll of Nikki Haley’s supporters: Just 23% of them say they’d vote for Donald Trump in a general election, while a whopping 43% said they’d vote for Joe Biden instead of Trump. Think about that. Nearly half of her supporters are so Trump-deranged that they’d prefer a corrupt, dementing, 81-year-old open-borders Democrat to a mean-tweeting America First Republican. One has to wonder: Are these people really Republicans, or are they mischief-making Democrats? In any case, the finding lends weight to the suspicions of the GOP base toward Haley’s brand of “establishment” Republicanism. NBC News tries to accentuate the positive: “These new findings … further illustrate the degree to which Haley is bringing in support from independents, Democrats and Republicans who have been uneasy with Trump’s takeover of the GOP. Fully half of her Iowa caucus supporters are independents or crossover Democrats, according to the survey results.” Haley ended up finishing third in Iowa yesterday, a disappointing showing given that she’d pulled ahead of Ron DeSantis in late polling. But now it’s on to New Hampshire, where she polls much more strongly, in large part due to the weirdly open nature of the Granite State’s primary, in which independents and Democrats can vote in the Republican primary. There, she trails Trump by just 14 points, but, again, one has to wonder just where that support is coming from.

• Gotta love X “Community Notes”: In recognition of MLK Day, the FBI issued a social media post on X that included the following statement: “This #MLKDay, the #FBI honors one of the most prominent leaders of the Civil Rights movement and reaffirms its commitment to Dr. King’s legacy of fairness and equal justice for all.” However, thanks to X embracing the spirit of free speech, a community note was affixed to the post that added appropriate historical context. That note reads: “The FBI engaged in surveillance of King, attempted to discredit him, and used manipulation tactics to influence him to stop organizing. King’s family believe the FBI was responsible for his death.” The truth is that the FBI and King did not have a chummy relationship, as the agency perceived him as a threat. Of course, today, given King’s popular legacy, the FBI would love nothing more than for its abuse of the civil rights leader to fall down the memory hole.

• Pothole Pete tackles the important things: Joe Biden’s Secretary of the Department of Transportation Pete Buttigieg apparently has no sense of humor. The U.S. Federal Highway Administration, a division of the DOT, recently released an updated 1,100-page manual that included a section regulating Changing Message Signs (CMS). Included in the updated regulations is what amounts to the forbidding of humorous CMS messages. The regulation reads in part, “Messages with obscure or secondary meanings, such as those with popular culture references, unconventional sign legend syntax, or that are intended to be humorous, should not be used as they might be misunderstood or understood only by a limited segment of road users and require greater time to process and understand.” In other words, humor is dangerous when driving. But is it? Studies show that humorous CMS messages have proven to be more effective at positively impacting traffic because they are not ignored as frequently as informational-only CMS messages. But for the Left, which makes a habit of finding offense at everything, humor must not be tolerated.

• DEI is spelled DIE: When it comes to getting a job done and doing it well, diversity is not the means for ensuring that goal is met; rather, a meritocracy that measures competency is the best means for achieving that goal. Unfortunately, the Biden administration has swallowed the Marxist “equity” ethic hook, line, and sinker, which has increasingly resulted in a government that is failing at every level, and it’s getting ever more dangerous for the American public. A case in point is the Federal Aviation Administration’s recent announcement that it will advance the woke tenets of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” by actively seeking to recruit workers for the agency who suffer from “severe intellectual” disabilities. According to its website, the FAA will target “those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring. They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.” This is what results from a commitment to ideology over and against practical reality. Or to put it another way, this is what comes of elevating feelings over facts. The question is, how many lives will end up being sacrificed thanks to this “feel good” equity policy?

• Two Navy SEALs are lost at sea: In another grim reminder of the great sacrifice that our nation’s elite warriors routinely make on behalf of their country, two Navy SEALs are missing at sea after having fallen into rough, nighttime waters in the Gulf of Aden while raiding a small, suspicious ship off the coast of Somalia. As Fox News reports, the two SEALs “were on a mission chasing shipments of Iranian-made weapons bound for Yemen. … The SEALs were attempting to board a ship they suspected was falsely flagged that could have been smuggling weapons. … The revelation comes amid reports that the SEALs went missing after conducting a nighttime interdiction mission Thursday off the coast of Somalia.” NBC News adds, “The SEALs were trying to climb into a type of small boat known as a dhow Thursday night when one of them fell in amid the rough seas [and] a second sailor jumped in to rescue the first, as protocol dictates, and both disappeared into the darkness.” The waters in the gulf are warm, and commanders remain hopeful that the two warriors may yet be found alive.

• American Spirit: A good principal: Dan Marburger, the principal at Perry High School in Iowa, recently succumbed to the injuries he sustained when he sought to defend students against a gender-confused student who attacked the school earlier this month. According to officials, Marburger “acted selflessly and placed himself in harm’s way" as the perpetrator opened fire at the school. Marburger literally gave his life to save students under his care. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds called his actions that day "selfless and heroic,” and she ordered flags flown at half-staff until sunset on the day of his funeral.

Headlines

• Houthis strike U.S. cargo ship in first successful attack on American-owned vessel (National Review)

• Iran claims responsibility for strikes near U.S. consulate in northern Iraq (New York Post)

• Hamas releases cruel propaganda video revealing which hostages are dead (Washington Free Beacon)

• Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin released from hospital (Reuters)

• Fani Willis goes to church, tells congregation she’s being targeted for skin color (Daily Wire)

• White House swatted by “prank caller” claiming residence on fire (Breitbart)

• Eric Adams to put illegal immigrant shelter under curfew due to rising crime, complaints of begging (PM)

• Joe Biden donors made up most of Hunter’s art sales, witness says (Washington Examiner)

• German tractors clog Berlin as farmer protests reach climax (DW)

• Humor: Nine items liberals must stockpile to protect themselves in case Trump wins (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.