Next Week Will Either Be The Best Or Worst Of Biden’s Presidency . . . President Joe Biden is facing a tough week that will have long-lasting consequences for both his domestic and foreign policy agendas. To succeed, he needs to pass a multi-trillion dollar spending bill and maintain America’s role as global leader in overseas meetings. The Biden administration has been negotiating with Democrats on Capitol Hill for months to pass the president’s infrastructure legislation. Now, the deadline for key climate provisions in the legislation is fast approaching. Biden will meet with global leaders in Glasgow, Scotland, on Nov. 1 to discuss how the international community should address climate change. The problem, however, is that if Biden cannot shepherd his infrastructure bill through Congress before he leaves, he will have no box to stand on in Glasgow. Daily Caller

 

 

Who knows what kinds of quotas and requirements this is going to introduce?

 

 

 

Progressives scramble to save top priorities from chopping block . . . Progressives are scrambling to save top priorities that risk being scaled down or axed from President Biden’s social spending plan as Democratic leadership and the White House race to get a deal. Democratic leadership is hoping liberals will embrace the bill, even though it’s substantially smaller than the $6 trillion originally envisioned by the left or even the $3.5 trillion approved under a budget resolution earlier this year. Liberal lawmakers are warning that Democrats need to make good on promises they made to voters, who delivered the party its first trifecta in roughly a decade during the 2020 election.   The Hill

 

 

 

Hate Crimes in US, Including on Houses of Worship, Increasing, FBI Says . . . Hate crimes in the United States could surpass last year’s surge in attacks nationwide, with a rise in hate incidents targeting Houses of worship, from Jewish synagogues and Catholic churches to Muslim Mosques and Buddhist temples.
According to Axios, the number of hate crime incidents reported nationwide this year could exceed 2020’s figures when the FBI said that domestic hate crimes in the United States rose to the highest level in more than a decade. Updated FBI data released on Tuesday shows that last year, there were 8,052 single-bias incidents involving 11,126 victims, 13.3 percent of whom were targeted because of the offenders’ religious bias. The FBI defines hate crimes as offenses “motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity.” Epoch Times

 

Cyber Concerns, Classification Disagreements Lead Space Survey Results . . . More than any other threat, cyber attacks are the greatest concern for the US national security enterprise in the next five years, according to the results of the first ever Breaking Defense Space Survey. The online survey, which ran from mid-August to mid-September, polled almost 500 space professionals on a variety of topics, including the greatest threats to America’s space ambitions, the growing role of the Space Force, and what space capabilities need the most investment going forward. While the idea of space-based kinetic warfare captures the public imagination, the professionals polled for this survey highlighted cyberattacks as the “greatest challenge” to for US security in orbit and beyond. Breaking Defense

 

Europe’s Push to Loosen Russian Influence on Gas Prices Bites Back . . . Gas supplies run short this year, setting off an energy crisis across the continent. European energy ministers met Tuesday to address the shortage, which is stinging homeowners and lifting prices for goods from metals to fertilizers. But there is little they can do to boost supplies immediately, and Russia isn’t helping. European officials and companies over the past decade successfully pressured Russian energy giant Gazprom PJSC, which is by far the bloc’s largest supplier, to replace long-term contracts linked to the price of oil with sales based on the real-time market price for gas. Russia remained the dominant supplier, giving Moscow huge influence over one of Europe’s leading sources of electric power and home heating. Wall Street Journal

 

Gazprom’s low gas storage levels fuel questions over Russia’s supply to Europe . . . Russia’s Gazprom has emptied its gas storage facilities in western Europe to unusually low levels ahead of the winter, adding to fears that Moscow has exacerbated a shortage of supplies that has boosted prices to a record level. Russian president Vladimir Putin this month blamed record gas prices on European energy companies not pumping enough gas into underground storage ahead of the winter, as he denied once again that Moscow has restricted supplies to Europe. But while European storage levels are low, an analysis of European gas industry data shows the largest shortfalls are at sites owned or controlled by Russia’s state-run gas monopoly Gazprom, in what critics say increasingly points to an attempt to squeeze European energy supplies. Financial Times

 

Taiwan Gains Favor in Europe’s East, Angering China . . . Nations across Central and Eastern Europe are deepening ties with Taiwan as relations with China cool, leading to confrontation with Beijing. Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu is visiting Slovakia and the Czech Republic this week in a move that China, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as Chinese territory, warned might lead to retaliation. Lithuania, meanwhile, has angered Beijing by agreeing with Taiwan to open de facto embassies in each other’s capitals. Poland and Slovakia recently donated hundreds of thousands of doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Taiwan.

The intensifying links with Taipei and worsening relations with Beijing mirror tensions between the West and China over trade, military and human-rights issues. They also highlight differences within the West in how to approach an increasingly assertive China. In Europe, major countries dependent on Chinese trade, including Germany and France, have shrugged off U.S. pressure to reduce exposure to Beijing. But Central European countries trade less with China and see close ties to the U.S. as crucial for their security.  Wall Street Journal

 

NIH Removes Language on ‘Gain-of-Function’ From Website Amid Criticism Over Funding Chinese Research . . . The National Institutes of Health (NIH) altered a key portion of its website last week around the time it disclosed to Congress that experiments it funded in China met the definition of gain-of-function. The federal agency had a detailed explanation of gain-of-function research on its site, noting that the term refers to any research “that modifies a biological agent so that it confers new or enhanced activity to that agent.” But the explanation was wiped between Oct. 19 and Oct. 21—possibly ahead of the NIH’s most recent disclosures on Oct. 20 about research it funded in China that increased the potency of a virus by modifying it.
The updated page now says, in its only reference to that type of research, that research involving enhanced potential pandemic pathogens (ePPPs) “is a type of so-called ‘gain-of-function’ (GOF) research.” It claims that “the vast majority of GOF research does not involve ePPP and falls outside the scope of oversight required for research involving ePPPs.” Epoch Times

 

Military members, federal workers challenge Biden’s vaccine mandate . . . Members of the military, federal workers and government contractors have filed a class action against President Biden’s federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate, arguing they have not been afforded religious exemptions — or had those honored — for the shots.  The group includes Navy SEALs and Marines, among others, who charge the federal government is infringing on their constitutional rights, particularly the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom. Under Mr. Biden’s order, Navy and Marine Corp. members have to be vaccinated by Nov. 28. Army and Air Force members must be vaccinated by Dec. 15. The coast guard and federal employees have until Nov. 22. Washington Times

 

Congress Didn’t Give OSHA Authority to Impose Vaccine Mandates . . . The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is about to require 80 million working Americans to get vaccinated. You may be among them. There’s just one catch: OSHA lacks the legal authority to impose a vaccine mandate. 
Declaring that his patience was “wearing thin” with unvaccinated Americans, President Joe Biden on Sept. 9 announced that OSHA would require companies with at least 100 employees to mandate that workers either get vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID-19 tests. OSHA sent a draft mandate to the White House on Oct. 8. Once the White House completes its review, OSHA will issue the order. And then get sued. Daily Signal

 

Top News Organizations Run Huawei-Sponsored Puff Pieces . . . Some of the country's most prominent news organizations have partnership deals with telecom giant Huawei, which the U.S. government considers a national security risk because of links to the Chinese government. The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Reuters, and Politico have all published news-style pieces commissioned by the Chinese telecom giant to advance its interests, according to a Washington Free Beacon review. Since July, Reuters has published two sponsored articles touting Huawei's investments in the United Kingdom. The Journal has published 14 sponsored articles since last year, while Wired has hosted virtual events sponsored by the tech giant. Politico ran pro-Huawei content last year. The articles disclose that Huawei sponsors the content, though the company's ties to the Chinese government may not be apparent to readers. Washington Free Beacon

 

‘Thanks for ruining my wedding’: Kyrsten Sinema protesters disrupt nuptials . . . Activists protested outside a wedding where U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was officiating over the weekend, the latest confrontation between demonstrators and the Arizona Democrat who opposes key parts of President Joe Biden’s social services and climate change package. A video posted to YouTube shows the bride’s mother tearfully pleading with protesters not to disrupt her daughter’s wedding, which was held at an outdoor venue separated by a wall from a public street in Bisbee, Arizona. Several demonstrators yell at the mother until one peacemaker suggests they walk quietly with their signs so the wedding can begin. At one point, the bride says, “thanks for ruining my wedding, I really appreciate it.” Washington Times

 

Nothing is sacred any more for these hoodlums. 

 

US Navy to Determine Ships' Preferred Pronouns . . . For millenia, mariners have assumed ships and boats were female and referred to them as "she/her." As the world becomes more aware that people are actually whatever gender they happen to be thinking of at the moment, a nearly universal outcry erupted that we are assuming the genders of all sorts of objects. Despite initial objections from some high-ranking Trump era holdovers, the Navy has decided that now is the time to come into 21st century thinking by figuring out what gender each ship actually would prefer to be.

"Aside from the fact that it is naturally just sexist and homophobic, it is also illogical." says Dr. Indigo Yehuda, a gender studies expert from Brown University who is working on this effort. "We've been assuming since, like, forever that all ships are female, right? But think about it - all ships can't be female, because then where would the little baby ships come from, like that rowboat over there? Duh." 

 

It is expected to take between 2-5 years and cost approximately $123M to fully understand the preferred genders of every vessel in the US Naval fleet. But the US Navy is committed and knows that someday, in the words of one Admiral who preferred to remain unidentified, "when you talk about one of our ships, you'll feel confident you won't offend it or anyone else around by referring to it by the wrong pronoun." People's Cube