Cross-Examination

• Ukraine in NATO? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke at NATO’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Wednesday in his ongoing effort to appeal to the members to accept Ukraine into the alliance. A day prior, Zelensky was fuming over NATO members’ “unprecedented and absurd” resistance to Ukraine’s candidacy. But his tone on Wednesday was more measured as he stated: “We understand some [of our partners] are afraid of talking about our membership now. Nobody wants a world war.” On Sunday, Joe Biden rejected NATO membership for Ukraine right now by explaining: “If the war is going on, then we’re all in war. We’re at war with Russia, if that were the case.” And Biden is right on this front — accepting Ukraine into NATO during its war with Russia would effectively be a declaration of war by the U.S. and the rest of NATO.

• It’s official: Outgoing Obama targeted Trump: The plot to torpedo Donald Trump’s presidency may have arisen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but it was the Obama administration that took the ball and ran with it. A National Security Agency record of correspondence during the final month of the Obama administration, obtained by The Daily Signal via a Freedom of Information Act request, confirms it. Of significance is the record of “unmasking” requests by Obama officials and those specifically targeting Michael Flynn, whom Trump had chosen as his national security advisor. It appears that Flynn was targeted to prevent him from uncovering the plot behind the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. In short, if it wasn’t for the Obama administration’s involvement, the Trump-Russia hoax might have been DOA.

• U.S. sub fleet operating at just over 60% The maintenance backlog of U.S. Naval submarines currently has nearly 40% of the fleet out of commission. This backlog is an increase over last year, which saw 33% of subs out of commission, when the best practice target should be only 20%. The raw numbers seem a bit less alarming. Currently, 18 of the U.S. Navy’s 49 attack subs are out of commission, which is two more than last year at this time. In any case, what’s causing this backlog? The primary culprit, explained Government Accountability Office spokesman Chuck Young, is aging shipyards’ “old facilities and inefficient layouts.” He noted that the Navy is currently five years into a 20-year plan to redesign four shipyards. With China rapidly expanding its navy, this news is disconcerting.

• Last U.S. chemical weapons arsenal destroyed: In 1997, the Senate ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international agreement that prohibited the development, production, stockpile, and transfer of chemical weapons. Following ratification, the U.S. began the tedious task of destroying our stockpile of chemical weapons, and last Friday the task was finally completed. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Kingston Reif explained, “The United States destroyed over 30,000 metric tons of declared chemical agent contained in nearly 3.5 million chemical munitions, over 22,500 one-ton containers containing chemical agent, and over 50,500 bottles and containers containing chemical agent.”

• $1 trillion a year in interest: This is what happens when the government spends money like a drunken sailor. The debt the U.S. government has accumulated and added to especially since the COVID pandemic has grown astronomically. As a result, this year, for the first time in U.S. history, the federal government will spend $1 trillion in taxpayer money on interest on the national debt. That is the equivalent of the entire value of Apple effectively up in smoke. To make matters worse, every year Congress keeps adding more to the ballooning debt. Will Americans ever be free from this debt our government has and continues to accumulate?

• Another House COVID report: House Republicans have released another report on COVID. This one focuses on Dr. Anthony Fauci’s efforts to suppress the lab leak theory by pushing researchers to produce a paper to “discredit” it. That paper, known as the Proximal Origin paper, was produced clearly out of geopolitical concerns rather than dispassionate fidelity to the science. For example, one of the paper’s authors, Andrew Rambaut, expressed worry in a draft paper over the “s**t show that would happen if anyone serious accused the Chinese of even accidental release.” That motivation “was antithetical to science,” Representative Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) observed. “The authors of Proximal Origin ultimately took a one-sided educated guess … [and] wilfully ignored evidence of a lab leak,” he added. “Science doesn’t follow a narrative, but fosters debate.” That the lab leak origin for COVID is now the prevailing theory accepted by most federal government agencies only goes to further expose that political and not scientific considerations were the driving force behind much of the COVID narrative.

Headlines

• U.S. forced to walk back comments Biden made about military (Daily Wire)

• Justice Sotomayor’s staff “prodded” libraries and colleges into buying her books so she could earn $3.7 million (Not the Bee)

• FBI worked to censor Americans for Russian-infiltrated Ukrainian intelligence (Just the News)

• FBI director to face harsh critics at House Judiciary oversight hearing (Roll Call)

• Consumer price index eases to 3% in June amid higher interest rates (Fox Business)

• Microsoft-Activision deal moves closer as judge denies FTC injunction request (CNBC)

• Appeals court blocks Mountain Valley Pipeline despite law revoking jurisdiction (National Review)

• New Georgia grand jury sworn in to consider criminal charges against Trump (Daily Wire)

• Justice Department reverses course on defending Trump in E. Jean Carroll case (NBC News)

• Iowa legislature passes bill banning abortion after six weeks (National Review)

• “They crucified me”: Georgia Dem defects to the GOP (Free Beacon)

• Mark Zuckerberg spends $43 million on private security after giving over $5 million to “defund the police” initiatives (PM)

• COVID learning loss isn’t getting better (National Review)

• Spanish climate minister flies on private jet to eco-conference, gets out of limo a hundred yards before venue to ride bike for the cameras (Not the Bee)

• Humor: Obese man explains to doctor he’s just fighting far-right extremism (Babylon Bee)

• Humor: Miss Netherlands “champing at the bit” to compete in next beauty pageant (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.