Cross-Examination

• What’s this “serious national security threat” all about? National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will be on Capitol Hill today to brief lawmakers on a national security threat from Russia. The threat is said to involve the use of nukes in space, ostensibly to disable our nation’s satellite system. That it’s Jake Sullivan who’ll be briefing Congress — that same scheming Hillary Clinton stooge from Crossfire Hurricane infamy — should be a hint and a half for lawmakers to wear their waders today. This isn’t to say that the Russia threat isn’t real. As Fox News national security analyst Dan Hoffman noted this morning: “Russia does a lot of things really poorly, but one of the things they do well is nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, space technology. … I have no doubt that this is true, and it would represent a threat to civilian communications as well as military command and control if Russia were to put a nuclear weapon in space. It’s obviously a violation of the Outer Space Treaty, which Russia signed, but I don’t think that’s something that would cause Vladimir Putin any concern.” As for Congressman Mike Turner, who sounded the initial alarm yesterday and made Congress look kind of foolish in the process: He chairs the House Intelligence Committee, he just returned from his third visit to Ukraine, and he’s a big proponent of continued U.S. funding of that country in its war with Putin’s Russian invaders. He also understands the crucial nature of the debate currently raging about the $85 billion Senate foreign aid bill, $60 billion of which would go toward Ukraine — this on top of the $113 billion in taxpayer funds we’ve already spent there. “I am requesting that President Biden declassify all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the Administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to this threat,” Turner said in a statement yesterday about the Russian space threat. To which a clearly perturbed House Speaker Mike Johnson responded: “We are going to work together to address this matter as we do all sensitive matters that are classified. And beyond that, I’m not at liberty to disclose classified information … but we just want to assure everyone, steady hands are at the wheel. We’re working on it. There’s no need for alarm.”

• Biden’s bogus Beau claims: Special Counsel Robert Hur’s assessment in his report on Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents is that the state of Biden’s memory is “significantly limited.” Biden’s fiery press conference response afterward only reinforced that conclusion. Biden blasted Hur for questioning him about his eldest son Beau Biden’s death, stating: “How in the hell dare he raise that? It wasn’t any of their damn business.” Of course, it’s Biden who has repeatedly referenced Beau’s death, often erroneously claiming he died in Iraq. Beau died of brain cancer in Bethesda, Maryland, in 2015. The trouble is, Hur did not question Biden about his son’s death. Rather, Biden himself brought up the subject during the five-hour interview with the special counsel last October. Hur and his team simply observed that while Biden accurately recalled the date of Beau’s death, May 30th, Biden could not remember the year of his death. The remaining question is this: Does Biden actually believe that it was Hur and not himself who raised Beau’s death?

• Tlaib refuses to condemn sexual violence as a “weapon of war”: Radical leftist Squad member Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) simply voted “present” on a bipartisan House resolution that condemned the use of rape and sexual violence as “weapons of war.” Tlaib was the only House member not to vote in favor of the resolution that was introduced by Democrat Florida Representative Lois Frankel and passed 418-0 on Wednesday. Following the vote, Tlaib posted on X her rationale for not supporting the resolution: “We all have a responsibility to denounce sexual violence in all forms, regardless of who is responsible. War crimes cannot justify more war crimes. This resolution falls well short of also acknowledging the sexual abuse of Palestinians.” The trouble for Tlaib is that Hamas was guilty of using sexual violence as a weapon of war, not Israel, a fact that was shockingly demonstrated and broadcast by Hamas with its October 7 attack on innocent Israeli civilians. As Frankel stated on the House floor, “Shockingly and alarmingly, Hamas’s violence has been met with a shrug from many corners in the world, and many deny it.”

• Why Dems welcome illegal immigration: Joe Biden’s illegal immigration crisis is of his own doing, irrespective of his administration’s disingenuous and politically calculated claim that Republicans are actually the ones to blame for their refusal to pass a bad immigration bill. Biden’s border policy from day one of his presidency has been one of a de facto open border. And the reasoning behind this policy has everything to do with building Democrat political power. With millions of illegal aliens now living across the U.S., the communities in which they live naturally raise the population numbers of those locations. According to a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies, this influx of illegals could increase the total number of Democrat seats in the House by up to 22. While these illegal aliens may never gain citizenship and voting rights, their mere presence boosts the representation level for those regions within the country where they reside. And those regions, in many instances, appear to be Democrat-run cities, which thousands of Americans have moved away from due to their being so poorly run. Effectively, illegal immigration is being used to artificially juice Democrats’ numbers in order to increase their representation in the House.

• TikTok is the new illegal immigration app: As if TikTok weren’t already a pernicious and mind-rotting Chinese Communist spyware, we’re now learning that it’s helping illegal aliens to effectively invade our country. According to a recent “60 Minutes” episode, many illegals are crossing into the U.S. after having watched step-by-step videos on the ChiCom-owned social media platform that show how to find gaps in the border wall and how to hire human traffickers to help them on their journey. “TikTok, TikTok,” a translator says on behalf of a female Chinese immigrant who’d been asked how she learned about one particular gap in the border wall. As Hot Air’s Jazz Shaw sardonically quips: “Is there nothing TikTok can’t do? Most of us are probably familiar with the typical uses of the app. You can watch crazy dances and Tide Pod challenges. You can learn the locations of conservatives or Jews you’d like to dox. Or you can just open up your own data to be consumed by the Chinese Communist Party. It’s all in good fun.” And now we learn it helps exacerbate our southern border disaster. Is this a great app or what?

• NY judge sets March trial date for Trump: New York City Judge Juan Merchan rejected Donald Trump’s request to dismiss charges brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg regarding alleged hush-money payments made to porn actress Stormy Daniels back in 2016. Merchan scheduled jury selection for the trial to begin on March 25. This will be the first of four criminal cases that Trump is facing. Entering the courthouse prior to the judge’s decision, Trump blasted the charges as politically motivated. “I’m here for something that’s not a crime. It’s election interference, and it’s being run by Joe Biden’s White House.” He added: “This is just a way of hurting me and the election because I’m leading by a lot. … If I hadn’t run, they would have been extremely happy.”

• Why is the CDC still recommending COVID shots for kids? Even casual observers of the COVID-19 pandemic have known since its earliest days that children and young people without underlying health conditions have an infinitesimally small risk of death. We saw the data when COVID hit Italy in early 2020 and decimated the elderly while leaving children living in the same home untouched. But when the coronavirus came to the U.S., our health policy leadership failed to apply this knowledge. As Joel Zinberg writes in City Journal: “The CDC recommended the bivalent mRNA Covid-19 vaccine … for persons aged 12 or older on September 1, 2022, and for children aged five to 11 on October 12, 2022. The bivalent vaccine was superseded last fall by a univalent vaccine against a subsequent Omicron variant.” And yet, according to a new CDC study, that Fall 2022 version of the vaccine was about 50% effective in blocking infection over a two-month post-vax period in children and teens aged five to 17. And, as Zinberg points out, “This limited and transitory benefit does not justify the agency’s official recommendation that everyone in this low-risk age group be vaccinated against Covid-19.” Whatever happened to “science”? And why on earth is the CDC still pushing the vaccine on our children?

• BRIC nations aim to take the U.S. down via global currency: As the story goes, when Fred Smith was pursuing an economics degree at Yale University in the early 1960s, he wrote a paper outlining the idea for an overnight delivery service. Apparently, he got a “C” on that paper. This, of course, says as much about Smith as it does an Ivy League education, but the point here is that when a visionary like Smith speaks, we might want to listen. And he warned earlier this week about the designs of the so-called BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India, and China — plotting to unseat the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. If they succeed, the result wouldn’t be pleasant for the standard of living we Americans have come to enjoy. Smith, a 79-year-old patriot, served two tours in Vietnam after graduating from Yale and earned the Silver Star for his valor. He began by noting that overall inflation was up 17.9% since Joe Biden took office. “We’re the wealthiest nation in the world because of all these wonderful inventions since the end of World War II,” he said. “But we’re also prosperous because we led the world in opening markets for trade and protected those trade flows with the American military and our alliances. And then third, and probably equally important, we’re the reserve currency of the world. The dollar is the medium of exchange, and our financial institutions control the movement of money around the world. … And then on top of that, our financial capabilities to print money at will is dependent on the dollar remaining the reserve currency. And the so-called BRICs alliance … have set out on a deliberate course to dethrone the dollar. If that happens, and we can’t sell our bonds, I can assure you the living standards that we all enjoy today are going to be a thing of the past.” Smith is speaking some harsh truths. The question is: Is anyone in the Beltway listening?

Headlines

• Kansas City shooting at Chiefs Super Bowl parade leaves at least one dead, 22 wounded (Fox News) | Biden says Kansas City Chiefs rally shooting should “shock us” into action on gun violence (Kansas City Star)

• Another top Republican announces retirement: Congress “broken beyond most means of repair” (Daily Wire)

• Jim Clyburn to step down from leadership role as Democrats usher in new generation (Washington Examiner)

• White House thrashed for Valentine meme attacking Mike Johnson over border deal (Daily Wire)

• Biden gets Putin’s endorsement in potential rematch with Trump (New York Post)

• Suspect surrenders to DC police, ends barricade that started with shooting of three officers (Washington Times)

• Bomb-sniffing dog was at DNC on January 6, raising further questions about undetected pipe bomb (Daily Wire)

• Biden admin pours $1 million into studies aimed at denying there are only two genders (Daily Wire)

• Trans athlete wins girls’ state title for high jump (Not the Bee)

• Disney decided to enter political fray after January 6 (Hot Air)

• Rachel Dolezal fired from elementary school after OnlyFans surfaces (Daily Wire)

• Yet another Harvard University official accused of plagiarism (Daily Caller)

• Humor: Devout Catholic Joe Biden gives up cognitive tests for lent (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.