Cross-Examination

• Prepare for more bulk-mail ballot fraud: During the 2020 election, mail-in ballots became a much bigger piece of the overall vote picture. The excuse for vastly expanding mail-in balloting at the time was the COVID pandemic, but the end of the pandemic has not stopped the mail-in balloting problem, as states have institutionalized and in some cases expanded the practice. The negative results from this will be twofold. The first will be the obvious problem of increased likelihood of fraudulent votes. The second issue is that of time. Ironically, in a world where technology has allowed for greater efficiency, the opposite seems to be occurring when it comes to multiple states’ election processes. Due to the increase of mail-in balloting, it is likely that several states will not know the outcome of elections until days if not weeks after Election Day. So instead of election results being known the night of or day after the election, the trend is going in the opposite direction, with elections being drawn out as mail-in ballots are received and processed. This creates problems for poll workers who will be forced to work for days, straining election resources. As the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Rachel Orey observes, “If you’re spread thin in terms of your election workers, and you have most people focused on keeping the polling places open and running, there’s less resources to put towards processing mail ballots on Election Day.” With several Senate races currently polling as tossups, the prospect of knowing who wins on Election Day is less likely, all thanks to mail-in balloting.

• High school volleyball girls banned from girls’ locker room: Ten girls at Randolf Union High School in Vermont are learning the hard way that daring to object to a biological male using the girls’ locker room will only get them in trouble. According to the girls, a male student who self-identifies as “transgender” made the girls in the locker room feel uncomfortable not merely by his presence while they were changing but by inappropriate comments he made. This male student is permitted to access the girls’ locker room thanks to Vermont law allowing “transgender” students to use whichever gender facilities they choose. When the girls objected to the male student using their locker room, the school effectively blamed the girls and began investigating them for harassment and bullying. As one of the girls explained: “I feel like for stating my opinion — that I don’t want a biological man changing with me — that I should not have harassment charges or bullying charges. They should all be dropped.” The school suggested the girls could change in a private single-stall bathroom, but as the student went on to explain: “They want all the girls who feel uncomfortable — so pretty much 10 girls — to get changed in a single-stall bathroom, which would take over 30 minutes. Where if one person got changed separately, it would take a minute, like no extra time.” Accommodating deviancy invariably ends in the sacrificing of decency.

• Ukraine applies for NATO membership: One of the main premises Vladimir Putin used to justify his invasion of Ukraine was to prevent the latter from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. At the time, Ukraine was nowhere near being seriously considered by other NATO nations. Indeed, NATO had repeatedly rebuffed the suggestion. Yet now, seven months after the Russians invaded, Putin has witnessed the likely expansion of NATO to include the previous neutral countries of Finland and Sweden. On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he had submitted an application to join the treaty organization. “Ukraine was and remains a leader in negotiation efforts,” Zelensky explained. “It was our state that always offered Russia to reach an agreement on coexistence on equal, honest, decent, and fair terms. It is obvious that this is impossible with this Russian president. He does not know what dignity and honesty are. Therefore, we are ready for a dialogue with Russia, but already with another president of Russia.” With the Ukrainians continuing to make significant progress in the war — their military liberated yet another significant city over the weekend — Zelensky is clearly pressing the advantage and encouraging NATO to continue its support. In other words, this is more of a strategic play by Zelensky than it is a genuine expectation that NATO will actually seriously consider accepting Ukraine at this time. If NATO seriously accepted Ukraine as a member, that would effectively be a declaration of war against Russia, a prospect that Europe and the U.S. have been keen to avoid.

Headlines

• House sends stopgap funding bill to avoid government shutdown to Biden’s desk (The Hill)

• It was the worst September for stocks since 2002 (MarketWatch) | Stock market losses wipe out $9 trillion from Americans’ wealth (CNBC) | Stock market has tanked 14% since Biden’s inflationary boondoggle passed (The Federalist)

• Kamala Harris slammed for saying Hurricane Ian aid will be “based on equity” (NY Post)

• Ron DeSantis warns, “Don’t even think about looting … we are a Second Amendment state” (PJ Media)

• Joe Biden thanks Coast Guard rescuer for hurricane heroics days before firing over vaccine policy (Fox News)

• Nancy Pelosi says farmers need illegal immigrants “to pick the crops” in Florida (Fox News)

• Ginny Thomas ruins J6 Committee’s plan to destroy her (PJ Media)

• Hundreds of DHS employees took pandemic unemployment aid even though they were working (Washington Times)

• Supreme Court set to hear major “culture wars” cases this term (Daily Signal)

• Fed’s preferred gauge shows inflation accelerated even more than expected in August (CNBC)

• Man who ran over Republican teen in North Dakota now charged with felony murder (PM)

• California just made it legal for minors to travel there from other states to get cross-sex drugs and surgery without their parents’ consent (Not the Bee)

• Cornell restores Lincoln bust after removal prompted complaints (Washington Examiner)

• Houston couple accidentally gets shipment of M16s after ordering gun storage cases online (Not the Bee)

• Putin’s conscription fiasco (National Review)

• Policy: Fact-check: What Politico, FEMA chief got wrong as DeSantis prepared for Hurricane Ian (Daily Signal)

• Humor: Blind taste test finds most people can’t tell difference between candy corn and orange crayon (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.