Cross-Examination

• Senate approves stopgap spending bill: In a 75-25 vote Thursday, the Senate passed a stopgap spending bill to fund the federal government through the middle of December and avert a partial government shutdown as the current fiscal year ends this evening. The legislation now heads to the House, where it’s expected to pass easily. The bill also included another $12 billion in aid to Ukraine both in provision of military equipment and weapons as well as monetary support for Ukraine’s government. Roughly $1.5 billion of the $12 billion is allocated to replenishing U.S. military weapons and equipment stockpiles that have been depleted in supplying Ukraine. Not included in the bill was $22.4 billion in funding the Biden administration had requested to replenish the stockpile of at-home COVID tests. “The pandemic is over,” after all.

• NY follows CA’s lead in banning sale of new gas cars by 2035: It would appear that Democrat lawmakers in New York have joined California in the collective insanity cult known as climate hysteria. On Thursday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the State Department of Environmental Conservation would soon be issuing new regulations that would ban the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035. “In New York, every week is climate week,” Hochul declared. “And we’re committed to protecting our environment and combating climate change every single day. … Electric vehicles are the key to achieving this.” Hochul noted that the eventual banning of fossil fuel-powered vehicles would be done on a progressive scale beginning in 2026 with mandating that 35% of all new vehicles sold must be electric; that percentage rises to 68% by 2030. New emissions regulations would also be coming into effect for new gas-powered cars starting with model year 2026 through 2034. Hochul celebrated the announcement by declaring, “We are not heading down that dead-end street [of gas vehicles] any longer.” Well, it appears that soon the residents of the Empire State won’t be heading on any long-distance trips either.

• AOC equates giving birth with slavery: “Abortion is an economic issue,” asserted the radical leftist Democrat representative from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. During Thursday’s House hearing on abortion, she explained, “Forcing poor and working-class people to give birth against their will, against their consent, against their ability to provide for themselves or a child is a profound economic issue and it’s certainly a way to keep a workforce basically conscripted to large-scale employers and to employers to work more against their will, to take a second and third jobs against their desire and their own autonomy.” In other words, preventing parents from killing their preborn children is equivalent to forcing them into working against their will, or slave labor. AOC might have an argument if these parents were forced against their will to engage in sexual activity for the express goal of impregnation — as if people were being bred like cattle. The trouble is that is not what is happening, nor is AOC making such a claim. She is simply arguing that people who freely engage in sexual promiscuity should not be forced to have to take responsibility for one particular result of such behavior. Furthermore, AOC is asserting the false claim that children are the cause of poverty, when in reality it has been the breakdown of the family that has been the biggest factor in poverty. The sad thing is that AOC and other pro-abortion advocates are literally demanding the right to murder the innocent, all for the sake of the personal convenience of the irresponsible.

Headlines

• Hurricane Ian heads for final landfall packing storm surge, heavy rain, strong wind threats in Carolinas (TWC)

• Six states sue to block Biden student debt cancellation plan (WSJ) | Biden administration scales back student debt relief for millions amid legal concerns (Politico)

• First “transgender” Army officer turns out to be a Russian spy (RedState)

• Jim Jordan: FBI allegedly engaging in purge of conservative employees, retaliating against whistleblowers (Fox News) | FBI insiders say agents who took a knee during BLM protests were rewarded (Washington Times)

• GOP senators baffled by Mitt Romney’s ploy to oust Mike Lee — and maybe thwart a majority (The Federalist)

• Republicans’ 2022 chances are better than some polls suggest (Washington Examiner)

• Justice Alito pushes back after Kagan questions Supreme Court’s legitimacy (National Review)

• Bill Clinton admits “there is a limit” to how many immigrants we can take (National Review)

• Fauci and wife’s net worth increased by $5M during the pandemic (Fox News)

• Policy: Is the Fed responsible for our economic turmoil? (City Journal)

• Satire: Russian spy awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom for being first openly transgender traitor to country (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.