Cross-Examination

• The end of the southern border: On Tuesday, a new record was set for illegal migrants crossing over the U.S. southern border, as 11,000 aliens were apprehended by Border Patrol. That record will likely be short-lived — officials anticipate as many as 14,000 migrants illegally crossing the border a day as Title 42 ends today. To make matters worse, in preparation for the migrant surge, Border Patrol officials are releasing thousands of currently detained migrants in order to free up space. Furthermore, for these migrants who are “Released on Own Recognizance” (OR), there appears to be no mechanism in place to ensure that they return for their asylum hearings. As one senior Border Patrol official observed: “Saying you are issuing ORs and actually doing it are two different things. It sounds good to tell the press, but some holding capacities are already way above 100%. Imagine what it will be in the days to come.”

• Santos charged: New York Republican Representative George Santos was charged with 13 federal criminal offenses related to his financial disclosures on Wednesday. Santos, who infamously lied about his background and history on the campaign trail, was one of several Republicans in New York to flip Democrat seats in 2022. Ever since his deceitfulness was exposed, Democrats have been demanding his removal, and it appears these charges are motivated more by politics than the law. Adding fuel to this speculation is the fact that these charges came after Santos announced his reelection bid. Meanwhile, back in Washington, federal investigators seem entirely uninterested in getting to the bottom of the Biden family’s means of enriching themselves with tens of millions of dollars from foreign sources.

• Fort Hood no more: The famous U.S. Army base in Texas that was before Tuesday known as Fort Hood has been renamed. Due to leftist iconoclast demands regarding the expungement of all Confederate-affiliated names, Hood is no more. Its new moniker is Fort Cavazos, named after Four-Star General Richard Edward Cavazos, who fought in both Korea and Vietnam. During his service in the Korean War, Cavazos was awarded the Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Cross, and by the end of his career he also received two Legions of Merit, five Bronze Stars, and a Purple Heart. Born in Kingsville, Texas, he served 33 years in the Army before he retired in 1984. He died of Alzheimer’s at the age of 88 in 2017. Retired Army Lt. Gen. Richard Graves noted that Cavazos was known for being “very concerned about the welfare of his soldiers.” The objection many have to the name change has nothing to do with Cavazos, who clearly is a deserving candidate. Rather, it lies in the dismissal of the historical rationale for why Fort Hood was so named in the first place. The recognition of honorable Confederate military leaders was intended as a means of building unity following a bloody civil war that had torn the country apart — a history Joe Biden seems intent on ignoring in his quest for “unity.”

• Newsom ambiguous on reparations checks: California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom foolishly decided to engage in a political virtue signal campaign when he launched a “Reparations Task Force” last year. The fact that California came into the union back in 1850 explicitly as a free state where slavery was outlawed didn’t seem to matter. Predictably, the task force of leftist race-hustlers has called for the Golden State to fork out as much as $1.2 million for each black resident. Already facing a state budget deficit, Newsom has begun to play coy. While lauding the work of the task force as a “milestone in our bipartisan effort to advance justice and promote healing,” he dodged any commitment to pay out reparations by contending that the legacy of slavery “is about much more than cash payments.” Rather, he says, it’s about advancing “systemic changes that ensure an inclusive and equitable future for all Californians.” Evidently, Newsom’s real objective was to teach a master class in political spin: the art of making impossible promises you never intend to keep. Now he can claim he’s taking the question of reparations “seriously.”

• Weingarten rewrites history again: The biggest no-no in school has always been cheating, which is a form of hiding the truth — or, to put it more bluntly, lying. Well, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers who recently revised her own COVID shutdown history, is effectively calling on teachers to hide the truth. On Wednesday, Weingarten encouraged teachers to “future-proof your social media” by purchasing a service “that scans your social media to catch forgotten posts that may not reflect who you are today.” The service in question is called LifeBrand, which advertises that it will “quickly find potentially harmful posts and then guides you to edit or delete those posts — forever!” Reeling from a growing number of parents who have organized in efforts to prevent their children from being indoctrinated in leftist ideology, Weingarten is seeking to hide any evidence that may expose teachers holding problematic ideological views that run counter to the educational expectation parents have for their children. In other words, she wants to cheat parents out of their fundamental right to know what their children are been taught.

Headlines

• Biden administration introduces sweeping asylum overhaul as Title 42 expires (National Review)

• House Oversight: Biden family got over $10 million from foreign entities while he was VP (Daily Signal)

• Biden campaign “coordinated” with ex-CIA official to shop Hunter Biden letter, House report says (Free Beacon)

• Combative Trump spars with CNN anchor over election claims, documents in town hall (Daily Wire)

• Dems, pundits blast CNN over Trump town hall: “Should be ashamed of themselves” (National Review)

• Biden green-lights aggressive power plant emissions restrictions, hamstringing fossil fuel generation (Fox News)

• “Gross misuse of taxpayer funds”: GOP bill would ban military base drag shows (Free Beacon)

• Pasta lovers beware: You could spend an extra 23 hours a year boiling water due to Biden’s gas stove rules (Free Beacon)

• FDA weighs potential over-the-counter birth control pill (Roll Call)

• Connecticut liberal arts college says it will pay for students to get abortions (Washington Examiner)

• SBC loses over 450,000 members in 2022, largest drop in membership in 100 years (Christian Post)

• Policy: It’s past time to prioritize skills-based immigration (The Federalist)

• Humor: Breaking: George Santos arrested, 534 members of Congress still at large (Babylon Bee)

• Humor: Border wall covered with Bud Light signs to deter migrants (Babylon Bee)

• Humor: Trump announces he will pay $5 million judgment in collectible NFT trading cards (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.