Cross-Examination

• Biden’s bumbling balloons: Following the U.S. military shooting down three more unidentified flying objects in recent days, Joe Biden weighed in on the expanding Chinese spy balloon scandal on Thursday. “We don’t yet know exactly what these three objects were,” Biden stated, “but nothing right now suggests they were related to Chinas’s spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country.” Moreover, the Leftmedia outfit Washington Post has now just recognized what should have been evident from the start of this whole saga — the U.S. military and intelligence agencies began tracking the original Chinese spy balloon virtually the moment it lifted off the ground from its home base in Hainan Island, China. This, of course, exposes the fact that Biden and company were lying from the get-go regarding when they first became aware of Beijing’s spy balloon.

• Better than Burisma: It turns out that Hunter Biden wasn’t the only Biden family member trading on Joe Biden’s political position to secure lucrative business deals. Recent affidavits reveal documents showing that Joe’s younger brother Jim leveraged the Biden name when he helped to secretly negotiate a $140 million business deal between a U.S. construction company (Hill International) and the Saudi Arabian government back in 2012, when his brother was vice president. And Jim was fully aware that his trading on his brother’s name had everything to do with getting the deal done. As former Treasury official Thomas Sullivan claimed when interviewing Jim Biden: “[Biden] stated that he was often sent to meetings to represent Hill because ‘of course, the name didn’t hurt,’ and he was the former Vice President’s brother, or words to that effect. He repeated this statement at least twice during the interview.” Sullivan further noted that Jim Biden said “that the reason he had attended was ‘because of his position and relationship’ with his brother.” This latest information has come to light thanks to the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee’s investigation.

• Fetterman hospitalized for depression: A week after he left the hospital after suffering medical issues, freshman Democrat Senator John Fetterman is back in the hospital. On Wednesday, Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. According to his chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, his reason was to receive treatment for clinical depression. Jentleson explained that the decision to get treatment was “voluntary” and, upon examining him, “the doctors at Walter Reed told us that John is getting the care he needs and will soon be back to himself.” He added that Fetterman has experienced depression throughout his life. Fetterman suffered a stroke while on the campaign trail last year, and it has left him noticeably impaired in his communicative ability, but supposedly did not otherwise impact his cognitive function. He is reportedly having significant trouble understanding when people speak to him — he’s hearing garbled sounds, likened to what the teacher sounds like in the “Peanuts” cartoon. For Senate Democrats, who hold a narrow 51-49 seat majority, if Fetterman ends up being absent for an extended period of time, it could prove problematic for advancing some of their policy goals.

• What in the world is “ecogrief”? The Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced that it will offer “ecogrief” training for employees. According to the department, this training will aim to help employees who are suffering from ecological grief over climate change. “This 4-hour workshop seeks to normalize the wide range of emotional responses that conservationists experience while empowering participants to act while taking care of themselves,” an advertising notice reads. “The workshop is intended for those experiencing ecological grief and for those who wish to support them.” The American Psychological Association once described “ecogrief” as essentially feelings of mourning over the “anticipated loss” associated with changes to the environment, although the APA admits “not much is known about climate grief” and no clinical studies on treatments exist. Congressional Republicans see it as another excuse for government waste of taxpayer dollars. Representative Pete Stauber (R-MN) added, “When I first heard of the ‘ecogrief’ class sponsored by FWS, I thought this was a joke.” Meanwhile, there’s a growing backlog of the work Fish and Wildlife employees should be doing.

Headlines

• Biden gets nearly clean bill of health after annual physical, but doctor refuses questions on mental state (NY Post)

• Downed Chinese spy balloon aimed for Hawaii, blown off course (NY Post)

• Three unidentified airborne objects were likely private balloons, Biden says (National Review)

• Biden shuts down questions on spy balloon, scolds journalists to be more “polite” (Free Beacon)

• CNN’s Don Lemon outrageously claims Nikki Haley “isn’t in her prime” as co-host balks (Fox News)

• Chris Cuomo: “I was going to kill everybody, including myself” after CNN firing (PJ Media)

• Under Biden, CBO deficit projections have increased by $6 trillion (National Review)

• Fox News hosts didn’t believe 2020 election fraud claims (AP)

• Going black, not green: Curbing U.S. oil, gas production would hurt the environment, report finds (Fox News)

• ChatGPT maker OpenAI says it’s working to reduce bias, bad behavior (Bloomberg)

• “Nonbinary” ex-Biden official Sam Brinton released without bail in luggage-theft case (NY Post)

• Satire: Nikki Haley officially launches campaign for someone to pick her as vice president (Babylon Bee)

• Humor: Biden annual physical confirms he is technically still alive (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.