A PRESIDENTIAL CAUTION: With Israeli troops poised for a ground invasion of Gaza, President Biden in Tel Aviv yesterday issued Israel a caution about what it plans to do in response to the October 7^th Hamas terrorist attacks.

  Biden is also expected to address the nation tonight in a rare speech from the White House.

  Speaking yesterday of the rage Israelis feel after the massacre and capture of civilians, Biden said, “I caution that while you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it.” He explained that “After 9/11 we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.” Following the 9/11 attacks, the US invaded Afghanistan to wipe out al-Qaeda terrorists and ended up bogged in a 20-year conflict that cost 2,000 American lives.  

  The US also invaded Iraq based on the faulty intelligence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had weapons of mass destruction. Biden yesterday said going to war “requires clarity about the objectives, and an honest assessment of whether the path you are on will achieve those objectives.”

  Biden had gotten to the heart of the matter only after delivering a wooden speech of rote sympathy for Israel that could have put a cup of coffee to sleep.

  The other news was the President’s announcement of $100 million in aid for civilians in Gaza and the West Bank as well as a deal with Egypt and Israel to allow aid across the Rafah crossing into Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that, “Any provisions that reach Hamas will be thwarted.”

TRUTH IS A CASUALTY: Israeli and US intelligence both say that the explosion at a Gaza hospital that killed and wounded an unverified number of people was caused by an errant Palestinian rocket.

  “Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” Biden said to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin during a joint appearance in Tel Aviv.

  Both Israel and the US say satellite intelligence and intercepts of militant communications tell them that a Palestinian rocket fell short, hitting the parking lot outside the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza city. Because these rockets carry only 20-40 pounds of explosives, this also calls to question the Palestinian report that up to 500 people were killed. 

  CNN quoted a Jordanian official saying it doesn’t matter whether Israel is not responsible, no one in the region is going to believe it.

CONGRESS OF CHAOS: For the second time in two days, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan went to the floor of Congress without enough votes to become speaker and lost. He actually lost two more supporters in the second vote. Despite that, he says he will keep pursuing the speaker’s chair. 

  It’s truly a House divided. With 217 needed to win, the vote was 212 for Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, 199 Jordan, and 22 for other candidates.  

  Jordan is a nine-term congressman who has never passed a bill of his own and can’t put himself over as speaker of the House.

  Why Jordan would allow a vote knowing he would lose is somewhat of a mystery. One theory has it that he wants to demonstrate that the only other way to elect a speaker would be with votes from Democrats, which would be political suicide for Republicans who go along with it.

PRIME SUSPECT: The man who’s always been the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of 18-year-old American Natalee Holloway on a high school graduation trip to Aruba has admitted killing her and confessed to attempting to extort the girl’s mother for information on where her body was stashed.

  Joran van der Sloot, a 36-year-old Dutchman, agreed to give “full, complete, accurate, and truthful information” about Holloway’s disappearance in trade for a 20-year sentence on extortion and wire fraud. Van der Sloot is already serving a 28-year sentence in Peru for the murder of a 21-year-old student.

  Investigators have tried but were never previously able to pin Holloway’s disappearance on van der Sloot and two other young men last seen with her. The case went fallow, but for a time it was in every news cast and newspaper. 

  Beth Holloway, the girl’s mother, said van der Sloot admitted to killing Natalee on the beach when she fought off his sexual advances and throwing her body in the water. 

SCREEN TIME: The Frederick County Public Schools in Maryland have joined other school districts in the country suing social media giants, claiming that the companies design their apps to be addictive and are to blame for the declining mental health of students.

  The lawsuit names Meta, Snap, ByteDance and Google — the parent companies of Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. The complaint filed in US District Court in Maryland argues that the companies marketed their apps to children, who are “uniquely susceptible” to manipulation.

  The Frederick district says it has had to divert money to address the “pervasiveness of social media addiction.”

THE SPIN RACK: The Federal Reserve says the wealth of Americans grew during the covid pandemic because of a strong job market, as well as rising stock and home prices. —Tesla, the electric car maker, says its profits dropped 44 percent in the third quarter after slashing prices by 25 percent to compete with other companies. — The Rite Aid pharmacy chain says it’s closing 154 stores after filing for bankruptcy. — A man who used Twitter to suppress the vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 was sentenced to seven months in prison. Most of Douglass Mackey’s digital deceptions were protected by free speech until he labelled some posts with logos resembling the Clinton campaign’s with fine print attributing them to “Hillary for President.” 

BELOW THE FOLD: Halloween has gotten really scary. Spirit Halloween, the largest Halloween chain in the US, says a lot of people will be dressed in pink as Barbie, Western Barbie, Skating Barbie, and Skating Ken. Don’t answer the door.

-30-