Cross-Examination

• Twitter fact-checks Biden: On Friday, in an effort to stump for Democrat candidates who are facing strong political headwinds thanks in large measure to his own leftist policy agenda, Joe Biden posted a dubious claim on his official Twitter account that he labeled as “facts.” The post read: “Let me give you the facts. In 2020, 55 corporations made $40 billion. And they paid zero in federal taxes. My Inflation Reduction Act puts an end to this.” Twitter almost immediately affixed a fact-check “context” label to Biden’s post with several source links that tacitly refuted Biden’s claim, including a note from The Washington Post: “Out of 55 corporations the tweet references, only 14 had earnings greater than $1 billion and would be eligible under Biden’s law.” Twitter’s fact-check of Biden comes on the heels of Elon Musk taking ownership of the social media giant last week. The fact-check also brought several positive responses from conservatives and Republicans who gleefully celebrated Twitter finally checking a Democrat falsehood.

• The Fed is losing money: Thanks to inflation at a 40-year high and the Federal Reserve’s response of raising interest rates by 3.35% so far this year — with another 0.75% increase expected before the year’s end — the central bank is now losing money. Interest payouts now exceed the Fed’s interest income on the roughly $8.3 trillion in the U.S. Treasury that the Fed has accumulated over the last 14 years. The Fed has an $8.7 trillion asset portfolio made up of mostly interest-bearing assets providing a 2.3% average yield, though given the current high rate of inflation and growing interest rate, the Fed’s payouts will likely exceed its interest earnings for the next couple years. Former senior Fed economist Seth Carpenter explained: “The losses can grow over time if they keep raising short-term interest rates, which it seems like they will, because the mismatch between interest income and interest expense will rise.” So the Fed will operate at a loss for the foreseeable future with the expectation that once the inflation rate gets under control, the net negative will turn positive “likely in a few years,” Carpenter estimates, adding, “at this point, they just have to live with it.”

• Brazil’s conservative president Bolsonaro loses reelection bid: Brazil’s brief turn toward conservatism and a greater embrace of free market capitalism has likely ended as the Latin American country voted in ex-con and leftist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The former president was in prison just three years ago after he was convicted of corruption charges, but da Silva narrowly defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, who now becomes the first Brazilian president in the 25 years since a constitutional amendment allowed for reelection not to win a second term. Bolsonaro’s defeat means that every major country from Mexico down through South America will be led by a leftist regime. Da Silva’s victory in his sixth presidential race since 1989 marks a return to power after a 12-year hiatus. While da Silva may have won on his past popularity, he steps into a situation where he will face a staunchly conservative congress that swept elections last month. What weighed down Bolsonaro was the COVID pandemic and the negative impact it had on the economy — an economy that has become increasingly dependent on its trade with China. Meanwhile, da Silva pushed classic leftist grievance politics, promising to tax the rich more and increase the minimum wage.

Headlines

• What we know about the nudist activist and conspiracy theorist who attacked Paul Pelosi (Washington Times) | Biden says attack on Pelosi’s husband echoes Jan. 6, blames Republicans (Washington Times) | Attack was “result” of Republican rhetoric, “MAGA terrorism,” left-wing media figures insist (Fox News)

• Democrats turn to Barack Obama to rescue them from a midterm shellacking (Politico)

• “Do not scapegoat Asians”: Rallygoers plead with Supreme Court to end race-based admissions (Fox News)

• GOP report argues lab leak theory is most likely explanation of COVID-19 (Hot Air) | ProPublica: The Wuhan Institute of Virology was a “biocomplex in crisis” in November 2019 (Hot Air)

• IRS says tax compliance rising, but hundreds of billions still go uncollected (WSJ)

• A key inflation indicator just ticked even higher (Daily Caller)

• Donald Trump says he won’t be returning to Twitter (National Review)

• Amazon fascists ban another book that leftists hate (PJ Media)

• Outside of school, America’s teens average 70 hours per week glued to screens (The Federalist)

• India bridge collapse kills at least 132 (Fox News)

• Satire: Heartbroken progressives forced to resort to old-fashioned technique of just not reading tweets they don’t like (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.