Cross-Examination

• Biden’s troublesome new chief of staff: Current White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain is headed for the exit in a move that some speculate has much to do with Joe Biden’s growing scandal over classified documents. Klain may see the proverbial writing on the wall, at least as it pertains to Biden’s potential 2024 reelection bid, which is significant. Klain has been widely viewed as the real power behind the scenes. Into his vacated place steps Biden’s former COVID response chief, Jeff Zients. This move has many conservatives worried since Zients’s record directing the administration’s pandemic response reveals the kind of totalitarian instinct that refuses to change course or admit wrong. Based on his social media postings, Zients has little problem effectively wishing death on Americans who disagree with his views. For example, in December 2021, Zients tweeted, “For the unvaccinated, you’re looking at a winter of severe illness and death — for yourselves, your families, and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm.” Pushing unconstitutional COVID vaccine mandates onto Americans was something Zients was fully behind. In short, like Klain, if Zients becomes the real power behind Biden, the country can expect two more years of hard-left edicts and insufferable inflexibility from the White House.

• More American workers say no to unions: Americans continue to sour on unions, as the percentage of U.S. workers who are members of unions has dropped to its lowest level since government records began 40 years ago. Despite Joe Biden pushing unions, the vast majority of American workers aren’t signing up. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in 2022, just 10.1% of workers were members of a union, down from 10.3% the prior year. This data shows the continuation of a long-running trend of American workers eschewing labor unions dating back to 1983, when 20.1% of workers were members of a union. When it comes to public sector versus private sector unions, the decrease is even more pronounced. The BLS notes, “The union membership rate of public-sector workers (33.1 percent) continued to be more than five times higher than the rate of private-sector workers (6.0 percent).” Why are so few American workers joining unions? The answer appears to be twofold. The first reason is the inherent hostile relationship unions have toward business, which produces inflexibility toward innovation, which in turn is damaging to both business and workers. The second and likely bigger factor is that unions have a long and infamous history of corrupt leaders who favored politics and personal gain over workers’ interests.

• Pandemic fraud: According to a recently released report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), at least $60 billion of the roughly $878 billion the federal government redistributed from American taxpayers to unemployment insurance programs during the pandemic has been stolen by fraudsters. The GAO further noted, “Current measures and estimates do not reflect the full extent of fraud, but they do provide important insights on fraud risks.” Indeed. The Labor Department’s tally of unemployment fraud comes in at $163 billion, but it’s likely even higher than that according to ID.me CEO Blake Hall, who believes the total fraud to be nearly half of the government payouts — some $400 billion. House Republicans have been repeatedly calling for hearings to look into claims of massive stimulus fraud for the past two years, but they were rebuffed by Democrats until now. As Representative Jason Smith (R-MO) stated, “American families, whose wages have eroded under President Biden’s inflation crisis, have watched as hundreds of billions of their hard-earned tax dollars were lost to criminal activity and fraud because Democrats refused to acknowledge the problem and repeatedly rejected Republican efforts to put basic safeguards in place to protect against this activity.”

Headlines

• Retired top FBI counterintelligence agent who led Trump-Russia probe arrested for own ties to Russian oligarch (Fox News)

• DeSantis fights back against White House, defends Florida’s rejection of race-based lesson (Fox News)

• Judge temporarily blocks Illinois assault weapons ban (The Hill)

• “Nonbinary” child of Dem minority whip arrested for assaulting police (Free Beacon)

• Vimeo nukes “Dead Name” documentary highlighting the horrors of transgender ideology (The Federalist)

• M&M’s tosses its “spokescandies” in the garbage after woke characters cause backlash (RedState)

• FDA proposes making the COVID vaccine a yearly shot, similar to the flu vaccine (NBC News)

• How Al Gore amassed a $330 million climate fortune by terrifying everyone (RedState)

• Policy: Joint Ford-China electric vehicle battery plant contrary to American interests (Daily Signal)

• Humor: Batch of classified documents found on Walmart clearance shelf (Babylon Bee)

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