Cross-Examination

• U.S. military in Ukraine? In the wake of the U.S. giving billions of dollars; worth of weaponry to Ukraine to assist it in its war against Russia, it is being reported that U.S. military personnel are also on the ground there. To some, this admission apparently flies in the face of the repeated claims that the U.S. is not fighting in Ukraine. However, the fact that U.S. military personnel are in Ukraine does not equate to them fighting in the war. As the U.S. Defense Department noted on Monday, these troops are there, far from the frontlines, on an inspection assignment to ensure that weapons given by the U.S. are used for fighting the war and do not end up being diverted or sold on the black market. As a DOD official stated: “We see Ukraine’s frontline units effectively employing security assistance every day on the battlefield. Nonetheless, we are keenly aware of the possible risk of illicit diversion and are proactively taking all available steps to prevent this from happening.” The DOD’s admission confirms the U.S. has had military personnel on the ground in Ukraine for a while for weapons accountability inspections. But their presence also puts Vladimir Putin on notice for targeting these weapons stores.

• Government will soon spend more on interest than defense: Joe Biden has erroneously boasted that he cut the deficit in half, “the only president ever to cut the deficit by more than a trillion dollars in a single year.” The truth is that Biden is claiming credit for “cutting” the federal deficit as the COVID emergency spending expired, while his administration’s policies have only added to the federal deficit to the tune of at least $2.4 trillion in new government spending. Far from cutting the deficit, Biden has done the exact opposite. The result of this massive increase in government spending has not only produced a 40-year-high inflation rate but also equates to a massive increase in spending on debt-created interest. In Fiscal Year 2022, the federal government spent a whopping $475 billion in interest payments, up from a FY2021 payment of $352 billion. By 2025, the government’s spending on debt interest will exceed its annual spending on national defense. Economist Dan White observes: “Regardless of who wins the midterms or in 2024, there are really difficult decisions that will have to be made. This is really going to handcuff them.” The national debt passed $31 trillion for the first time this year, equating to a generation’s worth of debt spending in a matter of just over five years. This reality has financial expert Peter Boockvar wondering: “For decades, budget deficits didn’t matter and U.S. debt didn’t matter. Maybe all of a sudden they will.” Eventually, those deficit spending chickens do come home to roost.

• PA Supreme Court sides with Rule of Law on mail-in ballots: In a big win for the Rule of Law and election integrity in the Keystone State, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that mail-in ballots that fail to conform to the state’s law requiring the inclusion of both a correct dating and signature are not to be counted. The Court declared, “Pennsylvania county boards of elections are hereby ordered to refrain from counting any absentee and mail-in ballots received for the November 8, 2022 general election that are contained in undated or incorrectly dated outer envelopes.” This is also a big win for Republicans who raised the lawsuit against the commonwealth to prevent election officials from including in their vote count mail-in ballots that do not meet the clear requirements of Pennsylvania’s election laws. Included in the Court’s ruling, however, was the order to “segregate and preserve any ballots contained in undated or incorrectly dated outer envelopes,” as the “Court is evenly divided on the issue of whether failing to count such ballots violates 52 U.S.C. §10101(a)(2)(B).” Earlier in October, the Pennsylvania secretary of state’s office was messaging local elections officials informing them that they were “expected to include undated ballots in their official returns for the [November] election.” Will elections officials be vigorous in following the Court’s order to “segregate” and exclude in the official count those ballots that fail to meet the law’s requirement for mail-in ballots? At least at this time, election integrity proponents have a clear ruling from the Court in their favor.

Headlines

• Joe Biden rails against Republicans while stumping in Florida (The Hill) | Post-hurricane, Biden claims Ron DeSantis is “Trump incarnate” (National Review)

• Republicans push back against Dems’ “same old lies” about ending Social Security (Fox News)

• Hillary Clinton questions whether voters “really understand” what’s at stake in the midterm elections (Fox News)

• Suburban women have bolted from the Democrat Party (Townhall)

• Biden again claims his son Beau died in Iraq (Washington Times)

• ACLU slams government working with Big Tech to decide “what is true or false” (Fox News)

• Twitter CEO Elon Musk details election integrity, content moderation on platform ahead of 2022 midterms (Fox Business)

• U.S. government should ban TikTok, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr says (NY Post)

• White House vows action on gun violence in late-night statement, says “thoughts and prayers” not enough (Fox News)

• Manufacturing plummets to lowest level since 2020 (The Hill)

• Second-largest teachers union boss slammed after agreeing with “pandemic amnesty" plea (Daily Wire)

• Over 200,000 "transgender” people could face voting restrictions because of state ID laws (NBC News)

• North Korea unleashes biggest one-day missile barrage; South Korea responds with missile launches (Fox News)

• Israel election: Preliminary results show Benjamin Netanyahu poised to return to power (Fox News)

• Policy: Has criminal justice reform made us less safe? (Common Sense)

• Satire: DHS announces it will suppress as much speech as it takes to preserve democracy (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.