Cross-Examination

• The ChiComs provoke a weak president: A high-altitude surveillance balloon has been detected floating over the northern continental United States. Currently hovering over Montana, the Pentagon noted that it has been tracking a Chinese spy balloon. Brigadier General Pat Ryder explained, “The balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground.” Thus far, Joe Biden’s Defense Department has elected not to shoot the spy balloon down, citing concern over the potential of a large debris field causing damage or injury to people below. However, Republicans in Montana aren’t buying that excuse, with Senator Ryan Zinke calling on Biden to “Shoot. It. Down.” He adds: “The Chinese spy balloon is clear provocation. In Montana we do not bow. We shoot it down. Take the shot.” Governor Greg Gianforte responded, “From the spy balloon to the Chinese Communist Party spying on Americans through TikTok to CCP-linked companies buying American farmland, I’m deeply troubled by the constant stream of alarming developments for our national security.” Beijing has admitted the balloon is indeed from China, but according to a spokesman, “it is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes.” And pigs can fly.

• Shocker — the FBI found no classified docs at Biden’s beach house: Months after several classified documents were found at Joe Biden’s think tank in Washington and at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, the FBI finally got around to searching his beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware. According to Biden’s personal lawyer, Bob Bauer, FBI agents searched the home for roughly three and a half hours; they found no classified documents, but did take some handwritten notes that dated back to Biden’s tenure as vice president. Bauer also emphasized that the search was carried out with “full support and cooperation” of Biden. It’s no surprise that the FBI found no more classified documents given the fact that Biden and his legal team had weeks to comb through his beach house ahead of time. Why did it take so long for the FBI to finally get around to conducting this search? Once that first classified document was found in Biden’s Wilmington home, it should have triggered an immediate action by the Justice Department to search all of his properties. Several facts have become quite clear. Despite his claims otherwise, Biden does not take the handling of classified materials “seriously.” Biden and company have been anything but transparent through this growing scandal. Finally, the Justice Department has not been acting as an independent law enforcement agency but has gone out of its way to accommodate Biden and dismiss any lawbreaking as supposedly trivial and inconsequential.

• January jobs report: The U.S. economy added 517,000 jobs in January, far exceeding the estimated 187,000. Headline unemployment also fell to 3.4%, its lowest level since 1969. There is a bit of a caveat there, though, as a fuller measure of unemployment — counting those who deliberately sit on the sidelines — rose to 6.6%. Meanwhile, the problem of unfulfilled job openings remains, as there are still roughly 11 million open positions. The good jobs report, however, has not dispelled fears of a slowing economy, with some economists still expecting recession later in the year. In related news, Joe Biden’s top economic aide, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, announced on Thursday that he will be leaving the administration. Biden heaped praise on Deese for helping “steer my economic vision into reality” given the role he played in getting “critical” legislation passed — that legislation being Biden’s disastrously inflationary American Rescue Plan and dubiously titled Inflation Reduction Act. Thanks in part to Deese, Americans have been suffering under 40-year-high inflation. Despite Biden’s accolades, Deese’s economic advice certainly didn’t benefit the American worker and taxpayer, though it sure did further the Democrats’ expansion of big government.

Headlines

• Ilhan Omar gets the boot: House votes her off Foreign Affairs Committee as Democrats cite “racism” (Fox News)

• Progressive “Squad” members cry hysterically before GOP removes Omar (Townhall)

• Eighty-six House Democrats vote against resolution condemning socialism (Daily Signal)

• Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders to deliver GOP response to Biden’s State of the Union address (Fox News)

• New Jersey Republican Councilwoman Eunice Dwumfour shot dead outside home in “despicable criminal act” (Fox News)

• OECD offers final guidance for global minimum corporate tax (Reuters)

• Los Angeles students to be allowed to carry Narcan in schools amid deadly fentanyl crisis (Daily Wire)

• UChicago selects failed candidates Beto O'Rourke, Tim Ryan to teach politics (College Fix)

• Satire: Omar blames her removal from Foreign Affairs Committee on the Jews (Babylon Bee)

• Humor: Punxsutawney Phil emerges from burrow to let everyone know there are some documents marked “classified” down there (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.