Pelosi handed major defeat by rising progressive Democrat stars, as Biden agenda put on ice . . . In a rare instance in which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was unable do what she needed to do to win a vote, progressive House Democrats secured a major win last week by blocking the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill the speaker promised would make it through the chamber by Thursday.  It was a stunning failure for the speaker who's been known for years for her iron grip on her caucus and her ability to win major votes by the slimmest of margins.  It caused President Biden's two biggest agenda items to come to a screeching halt in Congress. Fox News

 

 

Nikki Haley Embraces Trump in Her Vision of GOP Future . . . Nikki Haley calls Donald Trump a friend and says she would consult with him before embarking on a White House bid, but the former United Nations ambassador disagrees with the former president when it comes to the outcome of the 2020 election.“There was fraud in the election, but I don’t think that the numbers were so big that it swayed the vote in the wrong direction,” Ms. Haley said in an interview ahead of a Tuesday evening appearance at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. Wall Street Journal

 

‘You All Just Filmed Yourselves Committing A Felony’: Meghan McCain Slams Left After ‘Disgusting’ Bathroom Accosting Of Sen. Sinema . . . Meghan McCain slammed the left after a “disgusting” bathroom accosting of Democrat Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and argued that the activists “filmed themselves committing a felony.” “Filming someone in a bathroom without consent is a class 5 felony in Arizona,” the former co-host of “The View” tweeted Mondays. “You all just filmed yourselves committing a felony,” she added, along with a retweet of a clip showing Sinema being chased into the bathroom and filmed at Arizona State University.  Daily Caller

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘War of weaponized influence’: U.S. spending millions to hunt down foreign tweets, memes . . . The U.S. government is building expensive tools to fight enemies that use tweets and memes instead of bullets and bombs. Instead of the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan, the battleground is on technological platforms such as Twitter, where the Defense Department’s research and development arm says America is fighting an “asymmetric, continual, war of weaponized influence narratives.”
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said it plans to spend $59.5 million in the next four years on researchers making algorithms and gathering content including tweets, memes, political ads and blog posts for the government’s Influence Campaign Awareness and Sensemaking (INCAS) program. Washington Times

 

 

The Shin Bet’s clean-up of illegal firearms will help police curb galloping Israeli Arab homicidal crime . . . A special small unit of the Shin Bet security service is to be charged with staunching the flow of firearms to the Israeli Arab community in support of the coming police battle against the crime gangs long plaguing Israel’s Arab community amid a rising death toll. This year alone, violent crime within the community cost 95 Arab lives. The national police will have their hands full with a crackdown to make the streets safe for around two million Arab citizens, who live in terror from some 20 crime gangs based on clans. Most are too scared to bear witness against their tormentors – even when they are the bereaved families of the victims. Often, they refuse to cooperate with the “Jewish police,” investigation into murders, while at the same time demanding protection. These clan-gangs hold sway by protection rackets against local shopkeepers, dope smuggling, assassinations, contract killings, rustling farm produce. DEBKAfile

 

China sharply escalates warplane provocations near Taiwan . . . China’s military stepped up provocative aerial incursions near Taiwan on Monday with its biggest sortie to date, sending 58 warplanes, including 12 nuclear-capable bombers, inside the island’s air defense zone, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry said.
Flights on Friday and Saturday traveled into the same southern air defense zone in what Chinese state media called practice for a military assault on Taiwan, an island state 100 miles off the southern Chinese coast. Beijing considers Taiwan to be part of its sovereign territory. The incursions Monday, in two waves, were the largest so far in what appears to be a Beijing-directed campaign of coercion. The flights bring the total aircraft flying into the air defense zone since late last week to 136 and represent a People’s Liberation Army escalation of tension. Washington Times

 

French clergy sexually abused over 200,000 children since 1950, probe finds . . . French clergy have sexually abused more than 200,000 children over the past 70 years, a major  investigation released on Tuesday found, and its authors accused the Catholic Church of turning a blind eye for too long.
The church had shown "deep, total and even cruel indifference for years," protecting itself rather than the victims of what was systemic abuse, said Jean-Marc Sauve, head of the commission that compiled the report. Most of the victims were boys, he said, many of them aged between 10 and 13. The church not only did not take the necessary measures to prevent abuse but also failed to report it and sometimes knowingly put children in touch with predators, he said. Reuters

 

AstraZeneca Submits Preventive Covid-19 Treatment for FDA Authorization . . . AstraZeneca said Tuesday it has asked U.S. regulators for emergency-use authorization for an antibody drug that earlier this year showed strong efficacy in preventing symptomatic Covid-19, offering a potential alternative in evading the disease. AstraZeneca said in August that it would aim the antibody combination, called AZD7442 and delivered as a shot, at preventing Covid-19 symptoms, like a vaccine. The primary use, AstraZeneca said, would be for a minority of people with chronic diseases and other conditions that could render vaccines less effective. Emergency-use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, if granted, would make the long-acting antibody cocktail a first-of-its kind preventive option. Wall Street Journal

 

Bold Big Government Socialism vs. Timid Big Government Socialism . . . The power struggle we are watching in the Democratic Party over President Joe Biden’s spending (and taxing) bill is not between moderates and Big Government Socialists. It’s between timid Big Government Socialists and bolder ones. There are no moderates left in the Democratic Party. In August, every single Democrat in the House and Senate voted to move forward with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ $3.5 trillion spending bill – which is really $5.5 trillion when scored honestly. And every one of them voted for the $3 trillion tax increase to help pay for it – every one of them. After trillions of dollars in supposed emergency spending over the last two years, the current argument is not over whether we will spend $3.5 trillion or spend nothing. The fight is between $3.5 trillion and $1.2 trillion. The final bill, which could get the so-called moderates’ votes, will likely be $2 trillion. Only in Washington, D.C. would a $2 trillion expansion of an already too big government be called moderate. Gingrich360

 

Amazon has kicked off its deals and discounts for Black Friday ahead of schedule . . . Amazon customers can find "Black Friday-worthy" deals and discounts now across a wide variety of product categories, including fashion, home, beauty, toys, and Amazon devices. Popular brands including Apple, Hasbro, Sony, Shark, L'Oreal Paris, Bose and Kitchen Aid are partnering with Amazon for limited time offers throughout October and November. Shoppers will also have access to Amazon's Holiday Gift List to easily create and share gift ideas within their household. In addition, Amazon has unveiled a new tool for U.S.-based Prime members that will allow them to send recipients a gift without knowing their delivery address. Fox Business

 

 

The IRS Wants to Look at Your Bank Account . . . On your next trip to the ATM, imagine that Uncle Sam is looking over your shoulder. As if your annual tax filing wasn’t invasive enough, the Biden Administration would like a look at your checking account.
Charles Rettig, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, wants banks to report annual cash flows for ordinary account holders. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is promoting the plan, and the House Ways and Means Committee is debating whether to include this mandate in the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion spending bill. Ms. Yellen says the reporting will help to catch wealthy tax dodgers. In a recent letter to the committee she said the plan would reveal “opaque income streams that disproportionately accrue to the top.” Treasury and congressional Democrats hope taxpayers will report income more accurately if they know the feds have their account information. Wall Street Journal

 

Live Updates: A Russian Film Crew Has Arrived at the Space Station . . . The first dog in space. The first man and woman. Now Russia is about to clinch another spaceflight first before the United States: Beating Hollywood to orbit. A Russian actress, a director and their professional Russian astronaut guide launched on a Russian rocket toward the International Space Station on Tuesday. Their mission is to shoot scenes for the first feature-length film in space. While cinematic sequences in space have long been portrayed on big screens using sound stages and advanced computer graphics, never before has a full-length movie been shot and directed in space. New York Times

 

 

Facebook’s Apps Went Down. The World Saw How Much It Runs on Them . . . For more than five hours on Monday, the world got a taste of life without Facebook and its apps. People in many places discovered that Facebook and its apps had burrowed their way into nearly every facet of existence. The Facebook outage on Monday was a planetary-scale demonstration of how essential the company’s services have become to daily life. The outage disrupted the digital lives of small-business owners, politicians, aid workers and others. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger have long been more than handy tools for chatting and sharing photos. They are critical platforms for doing business, arranging medical care, conducting virtual classes, carrying out political campaigns, responding to emergencies and much, much more. But for some, it was a welcome reprieve. New York Times

 

 

Chris Cuomo Accuser: Women At CNN ‘Can’t Complain,’ It’s Clear ‘Cuomo Can Do Anything He Wants With Impunity’ . . . Chris Cuomo accuser and former ABC executive producer Shelley Ross said Monday women at CNN “can’t complain” and that it’s clear “Cuomo can do anything he wants with impunity.”
During Ross’ interview with Megyn Kelly on the Sirius XM radio show “The Megyn Kelly Show,” Ross said Cuomo’s comment to the New York Times about her allegation that Cuomo groped her amounted to “gaslighting.” She slammed him for calling the incident an “interaction” and claiming that it “was not of a sexual nature.” Daily Caller

 

Jan. 6 commission chairman once sympathized with black secessionist group that killed cops . . .  Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the congressional commission investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, has been a vocal critic of an event he deems an insurrection and offered his sympathy to the police officers injured that day. He's even gone as far as to sue former President Donald Trump for responsibility for the melee. But as a young African-American alderman in a small Mississippi community in 1971, Thompson placed himself on the opposite side, openly sympathizing with a secessionist group known as the Republic of New Africa and participating in a news conference blaming law enforcement for instigating clashes with the group that led to the killings of a police officer and the wounding of an FBI agent. Just the News

 

Evangelicals in danger of losing prophetic focus, David Jeremiah warns . . . Evangelical Christians risk letting societal divisions divert their focus from biblical prophecy, a popular evangelical pastor and broadcaster says. The Rev. David Jeremiah, whose “Turning Point” television and radio broadcasts have an estimated 400 million listeners worldwide, said events of the past 18 months inspired his new book, “Where Do We Go From Here?” released this week by Thomas Nelson Publishers. The book’s subtitle promises to explain “How tomorrow’s prophecies foreshadow today’s problems.” Speaking to The Washington Times, Mr. Jeremiah admitted concern over societal arguments that deflect attention from matters of faith. He said an overemphasis on racism to the exclusion of spiritual matters could increase division in the Christian world. Washington Times

 

Hackers Warn That If Demands Aren’t Met They Will Reactivate Facebook . . . With Facebook down, and the world basking in the warm glow of a post-Facebook utopia, the hackers responsible for the attack are now warning that if their demands are not met, they will reactivate Facebook once again. "We know the world is celebrating the peace and unity brought about by us deleting Facebook from the internet," said a cryptic message broadcast from an unknown location. "But if you don't comply with our demand for $700 billion dollars by 8 pm tonight, we will restore Facebook and unleash its evils upon the world once again." 

"NOOOOOOOO!" screamed everyone in horror at the thought of being doomed to once again scroll through Facebook's clinically addictive interface, depressing newsfeed, and angry arguments with Aunt Guthrie. "Please! PLEASE! Make Facebook stay gone! Don't let it come back!"  Babylon Bee