Biden set to meet pope as US abortion debate rages . . . President Biden, only the second Catholic president in U.S. history, will have an audience with Pope Francis on Friday, a meeting that comes amid increasing focus on the issue of abortion rights, which Biden has made a priority of defending. The Supreme Court has agreed to review Texas’s six-week abortion ban after legal challenges from the Biden administration, and the president faces a lawsuit in Ohio for overturning a Trump-era ban on abortion referrals, all while U.S. Catholic bishops are debating whether Biden should be denied communion over his stance on the procedure. The Hill

 

 

Jill Biden Inquiring How to Remove Sitting Vice President: Jack Posobiec Reports . . . First lady Jill Biden has been inquiring as to how to remove a sitting vice president from office, according to Human Events editor Jack Posobiec, who noted the development in a tweet. “Jill has been asking if there’s a process to remove a sitting VP,” he tweeted on Wednesday. Conservative Brief

 

 

Democrats’ proposed billionaires tax collapses after resistance from moderates . . . A plan by Senate Democrats to impose a tax targeting 700 billionaires collapsed after a backlash from moderate members of the party, as chaos enveloped the negotiations over Joe Biden’s $2tn spending package. The White House and Democratic lawmakers in Congress were on Wednesday night considering other measures to tax the wealthiest households, including a new levy on income over $10m, as they tried to clinch an agreement before Biden heads to Rome for the G20 summit. Negotiators have been desperately trying to find new sources of revenue to pay for Biden’s “Build Back Better” legislation — a sweeping bid to plough government investment into childcare, education, healthcare and the fight against climate change over the next decade. Financial Times

 

Did the Justice Department order up a letter from this organization so it could “respond” to it by sicking the FBI on parents?

 

 

John Durham to Call Former FBI Lawyer to Testify in Case Involving Former Democrat Lawyer . . . Prosecutors working with special counsel John Durham’s team indicated on Tuesday they may call former FBI General Counsel James Baker to testify in the case of former Democrat attorney Michael Sussmann, who was indicted for allegedly lying to the FBI. During a status hearing Tuesday, Durham prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis and his team said they plan to call Baker, who now works for Twitter, to testify as part of the case against Sussmann. Last month, Sussmann pleaded not guilty to making a false statement to a federal agent. The prosecution said that 6,000 documents were provided to Sussmann’s defense, amounting to more than 80,000 pages in total. Durham’s indictment against Sussmann is that he made false statements in September 2016 when he told Baker he wasn’t working for a client when he provided claims that alleged the existence of backchannel communications between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank. Perkins Coie has long represented the Democrat Party in election-related lawsuits. Epoch Times

 

China’s hypersonic weapon test close to ‘Sputnik moment’, says top US general . . . The US military’s top officer has confirmed that China recently tested an advanced hypersonic weapon, calling it a “very significant” development to which Washington was paying close attention. General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said the test of the nuclear-capable weapon was close to a “Sputnik moment” — referring to the start of the space race between the US and Soviet Union when the world’s first artificial satellite was launched by Moscow in 1957.
“What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system. It is very concerning,” Milley told Bloomberg television. “I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that. So it is a very significant technological event.” Milley is the first official to confirm a Financial Times report that China had tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic weapon. On July 27 it launched a hypersonic glide vehicle — which travels at more than five times the speed of sound and can manoeuvre like the space shuttle — on a rocket. Financial Times

 

Details of China info war revealed . . . China‘s People’s Liberation Army plans to conduct extensive non-kinetic warfare operations in any future conflict with the United States, according to an internal PLA report. The 438-page report, “Lectures on Joint Campaign Information Operations,” was translated and published by the Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute and reveals the strategy of seeking “information dominance” over enemies as a major weapon that will be a key factor in determining victory or defeat in battle. “The manifested forms of joint campaign information operations (IO) mainly are: electronic warfare, network warfare, intelligence warfare, psychological warfare, physical destruct warfare,” the report from 2009 states. Washington Times

 

Hacker group leaks data, photos from Defense Ministry, Benny Gantz . . . A hacker group called Moses Staff claimed this week that it has successfully conducted a cyberattack on the Israeli Defense Ministry, releasing files and photos it claims it obtained from the ministry's servers. Moses Staff's website claims that the group has hacked over 165 servers and 254 websites and compiled over 11 terabytes of data, including Israel Post, the Defense Ministry, files related to Defense Minister Benny Gantz, the Electron Csillag company and Epsilor company. "We've kept an eye on you for many years, at every moment and on each step," wrote the group in the announcement of the attack on their Telegram channel on Sunday. "All your decisions and statements have been under our surveillance. Eventually, we will strike you while you never would have imagined." Jerusalem Post

 

North Korea asks starving citizens to eat less as food shortages expected to continue . . . North Koreans are being asked to eat less food as the communist nation deals with a food emergency that is expected to continue at least until 2025, according to reports. A shortage of food in the nation led by dictator Kim Jong Un has resulted from a shutdown of its border with China, an action that was taken in 2020 in a bid to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported. But the move has devastated North Korea’s economy as food prices have spiked, and has resulted in starvation deaths among its population of 25 million, the report said. Some residents in North Korea suspect that the Kim regime’s request for citizens to cut back on food consumption suggests the leader "is not aware of how serious the food situation is," a source told RFA. Fox News

 

Economist Explains Why China’s Economic Figures Cannot be Trusted . . . In China, there are two “different sets of books” depicting the state of the country’s economy. One set conforms to the official line promulgated by the ruling Communist Party, but consists of fake data. This version is made public. The other set, meanwhile, contains the real data. But this set can only be accessed by officials or otherwise be bought on the black market.
That’s according to Christopher Balding, who taught economics at Peking University business school in Shenzhen for nine years until 2018. That year, Balding lost his post at the university aftering voicing concerns about Beijing’s censorship practices. He then left China citing concerns for his safety. Epoch Times

 

Antidepressant Significantly Reduces Covid-19 Hospitalization . . . Fluvoxamine belongs to a class of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. It is commonly used to treat obsessive compulsive disorder and is also prescribed for depression. In use for decades, fluvoxamine has been shown to be safe and costs about $4 for a 10-day course, said Edward Mills, one of the study’s lead researchers and a professor of health sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He said fluvoxamine’s low cost and wide availability make it a compelling alternative to other Covid-19 therapies including monoclonal antibody treatments, which are costly and require an infusion. Another treatment, Merck & Co. and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LP’s experimental molnupiravir pill, will cost the U.S. government around $700 per course in the U.S.
“For both poor countries and even wealthy countries, it’s a great option,” Dr. Mills said of fluvoxamine. Wall Street Journal

 

COVID-19 Cases In Florida Reach Lowest Rate In The Nation . . . Just two months after experiencing a pandemic-high rate of new COVID-19 cases due to the delta variant, Florida now has the lowest incidence of new COVID-19 cases in continental America. Over the last seven days, Florida has had nine new cases of COVID-19 per day per 100,000 residents, according to The New York Times’ data dashboard. Florida is tied with Hawaii for the lowest rate among the 50 U.S. states, and trails only American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands when including U.S. territories. Daily Caller

 

Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene loads up on Digital World Acquisition Corp. shares . . . Greene, a Republican from Georgia, purchased between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of Digital World Acquisition Corp., the special purpose acquisition company linked to Trump’s planned social media platform, according to a financial disclosure. Greene purchased her shares on Oct. 22 when they traded between $67.96 and $175. They have since traded as low as $52.77. "This transaction was reported in compliance with House rules and provides all required details about the transaction," Greene's office said in a statement to FOX Business. Fox News

Warning: COVID vaccine mandates will spike emergency response times, send city into 'chaos' . . . New York City’s municipal workforce has been warned by Mayor Bill de Blasio to be vaccinated by Nov. 1 or face unpaid leave which FDNY Firefighter Association President Andrew Ansbro argues will only cause chaos. In an appearance on Fox News Radio’s "Brian Kilmeade Show," the firefighter expressed how the department refuses to go down without a fight which will only lead to fewer workers on duty and more emergencies waiting to be responded to. "The staffing just is not there, there’s no way to do it," he said. "The response times are going to go through the roof. We’re just not going to be able to get to the emergencies in time." Fox News

 

Why Do Experts Keep Getting Polls So Wrong? . . . Political operatives have struggled to analyze polls over the last decade, and the problem may be getting worse. Polling in the 2020 Senate races of key GOP incumbents like Maine’s Susan Collins, Iowa’s Joni Ernst, and South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham consistently showed Democratic challengers running closely against the Republicans, although all three Republicans won by at least six percentage points. One poll, conducted less than two months before election day, showed Collins losing to Democratic challenger Sara Gideon by 12%, although Collins ultimately won by nearly ten points. Pollsters ultimately underestimated voter support for former President Donald Trump and Republicans in the House of Representatives by four percentage points. While the presidential polling error was in line with 2012 numbers, the error in House of Representatives elections was pollsters’ worst since 2006, according to FiveThirtyEight. Daily Caller