Cross-Examination

• Ian leaves millions of Floridians without power: Hurricane Ian hit Florida as a powerful Category 4 storm, though it has been downgraded to a tropical storm with sustained winds of 65 miles per hour and is still dumping a large volume of rain on the state. In the coming hours and days, the devastation wrought by the fifth-most-powerful hurricane to hit Florida in recorded history will be revealed, but already news is that the destruction caused both by the high winds and storm surge has been immense. According to Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marcelo, “We have fatalities in the hundreds,” though he acknowledged specific numbers have yet to be confirmed. Demonstrating the significance of the destruction, a section of the Sanibel Causeway, a 12-mile stretch of road that includes a bridge connecting Sanibel Island with the mainland, has been effectively swept away, preventing vehicles from accessing the island. Currently, 2.5 million residents are without power, some of whom may have to wait weeks before power is fully restored.

• Biden threatens oil companies: Wary that another spike in gas prices would damage the Democrats’ midterm election prospects, Joe Biden threatened oil companies and gas stations not to raise prices after Hurricane Ian. “If gas companies try to use this storm to raise prices at the pump, I will ask officials to look into whether price gouging is going on,” Biden warned. “America’s watching. The industry should do the right thing.” Biden then asserted that Ian should negatively impact oil production by “only about 190,000 barrels a day,” which he noted is “less than 2% of the United States’ daily production.” While the price of gas has dropped roughly 25% since hitting a record high of $5.02 per gallon in June, prices began to tick back up well before Ian arrived. Furthermore, what caused the spike in gas prices this year had everything to do with Biden’s anti-fossil fuel policies — policies he continues to push even as he harangues oil companies over the high costs. Of course, Biden deflects all the blame onto “greedy” oil companies. “They should be moving more quickly now to bring down the price at the pump,” he complained Wednesday. “There’s too much of a delay between the price of a barrel of [oil] being produced and the price of gasoline at the pump.” Who knew that Biden was both an oil executive and an economist? This is equivalent to the schoolyard bully grabbing a weaker kid’s arms and using them to hit the kid in his own face and then mocking, “Stop hitting yourself!”

• Bidenflation hits smuggling prices: Mexican cartels have been making bank since Joe Biden took over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Over the last 12 months, the cartels’ migrant smuggling business has produced $20 billion in revenue and at least $2.6 billion in profits thanks to Biden’s policy of open borders. The cartels that control the smuggling routes into the U.S. have raised their fees to an average of $8,600 per migrant. That represents a $2,000 increase since 2019. Migrants making the trip from Central America are now paying on average $11,500, up from $7,900 in 2019 and $9,000 in 2020. “There’s inflationary pressure on the number,” observed former Border Patrol chief Ronald Vitiello. “Everything else being equal, things are more expensive. Employees, gasoline, logistics; things are more expensive.” Even for criminals. The fees or tax that migrants pay for merely using the cartel-controlled smuggling routes have increased by over 50% since Biden took office. Human trafficking is spiking under Biden’s watch because his administration simply refuses to uphold American sovereignty and secure our southern border. Furthermore, the higher smuggling prices lead to more migrant exploitation, as the poor cannot afford the high prices and effectively sell themselves to the cartels. Not only is Biden’s open border hurting Americans, in many ways it’s hurting poor migrants even more.

Headlines

• “Where’s Jackie?”: Biden’s miscue raises fresh questions about his age (Washington Examiner) | White House digs in on Biden’s gaffe about dead congresswoman (ABC News)

• Confused Kamala Harris praises “the Republic of North Korea” on visit to DMZ (Breitbart)

• House Republicans introduce legislation to redirect funds from IRS to Border Patrol (Daily Caller)

• Feds have seized enough fentanyl at the border to kill entire U.S. population (Fox News)

• Final GDP reading shows US economy shrank 0.6% in the spring, cementing start of recession (Fox Business)

• The “food insecurity” racket: The feds spend $114 billion a year on food stamps. Biden wants more. (WSJ)

• Germany warned by CIA of possible attack on Nord Stream gas pipeline weeks in advance (Fox News) | European security officials observed Russian Navy ships in vicinity of Nord Stream pipeline leaks (CNN)

• Vladimir Putin to annex four Ukrainian regions in Friday ceremony (Fox News)

• CNN exodus continues as 20 staffers from doomed CNN+ laid off (Washington Examiner)

• Princeton University marks Constitution Day with event deeming founding document “a form of geopolitical gaslighting” (Free Beacon)

• MIT asks its faculty to endorse free speech (WSJ)

• Virgin Atlantic drops gendered uniforms, adds preferred pronoun pins (WaPo)

• Satire: Aides quickly grab Biden’s arm as he tries to follow the light again (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.