Biden Supreme Court commission opposes adding justices . . . The Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court released its first report Thursday, suggesting that an expansion of the court would be unlikely to achieve balance and instead recommending the rotation of justices. "There are also reasons to doubt that Court expansion necessarily would produce benefits in terms of diversity of efficiency," the Commission said in the report. "There is no guarantee that a larger Court would be drawn from a more diverse group of individuals. And a larger court may be less efficient than the current complement of justices."
The report comes after some congressional Democrats earlier this year called for an expansion to the Supreme Court, arguing that Republicans had unfairly obtained a conservative majority after former President Donald Trump was able to fill three vacancies during his single term. Fox News

 

Redistricting commissions descend into political warfare . . . All across the country, commissions that were intended to make the redistricting process more transparent and nonpartisan have become fraught with political intrigue, finger-pointing and accusations of bad faith. In Virginia, a commission made up of both citizens and legislators gave up on their efforts to redraw state legislative boundaries, punting to the state Supreme Court before even proposing a final version to debate. In Michigan, commissioners approved a state Senate map at a meeting in which four of 13 commissioners were absent, after those present voted to suspend the rules. The commission angered some Democrats and anti-gerrymandering advocates in August when it voted to hire a law firm with ties to Republicans to defend its eventual maps in court. The Hill

 

Jan. 6 panel to start contempt proceedings against Steve Bannon for not showing up . . . The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot announced that it will vote to hold Steve Bannon in contempt after the former White House strategist failed to appear for a scheduled deposition Thursday.
Thursday’s announcement comes as the panel awaits the deposition of several other Trump officials amid former President Donald Trump’s attempts to stymie the probe with executive privilege claims. Mr. Bannon’s lawyer, Robert Costello, sent a letter to the House panel late Wednesday indicating that his client would not participate in Thursday’s deposition, citing the former president’s assertion of privilege, which he said had yet to be ironed out by the committee. Washington Times

 

Biden’s Pick For Top Banking Regulator Refuses To Hand Over Thesis On Marxism . . . Saule Omarova, President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), is refusing to hand over to the Senate Banking Committee her university thesis on Marxism written during her time in the Soviet Union. Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, ranking member of the committee, had sent a letter to Omarova on Oct. 6 asking the Cornell Law School professor to hand over her Moscow State University thesis, titled “Karl Marx’s Economic Analysis and the Theory of Revolution in The Capital,” by Oct. 13, citing the committee’s need to “fully assess the fitness of individuals to serve in Senate-confirmed executive and independent agency positions.” Omarova, who grew up in the Soviet Union, had scrubbed mention of the thesis from her resume, the Washington Free Beacon reported. She also praised the now-defunct socialist government for its lack of “gender pay gap” in 2019. Daily Caller

 

 

 

U.S. Aims to Resume Regular Evacuation Flights From Afghanistan . . . The State Department plans to resume regular evacuation flights from Afghanistan before the end of the year to help U.S. citizens, residents and some visa applicants leave the country, a senior State Department official said, an effort that will require coordination with the Taliban and other governments. In addition, Kabul’s international airport remains closed to regular passenger aviation, and it remains unclear who will manage air-traffic control and ground operations.
The small number of U.S. citizens and thousands of Afghans left behind after the chaotic evacuation effort in the final weeks of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan could be eligible for seats on the U.S.-sponsored flights. The last U.S. troops departed on Aug. 31, bringing the 20-year conflict to an end. Since then, a small number of flights have carried Americans, Afghans and other foreign passport holders out of Kabul and the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, and some people have left over land, through border crossings to Central Asian countries and Pakistan. Wall Street Journal

 

Pandemic disruptions blamed for first increase in estimated tuberculosis deaths in more than a decade . . . Estimated deaths from tuberculosis—the deadliest infectious disease until the emergence of Covid-19—increased for the first time in more than a decade last year, the World Health Organization said Thursday, blaming severe disruptions in treatment and diagnosis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Using statistical models to help compensate for gaps in testing for and reporting of tuberculosis, especially in developing countries, the United Nations’ health agency estimated that around 1.5 million people died last year of the disease. That is up from 1.4 million estimated TB deaths in 2019. TB is a bacterial infection that most commonly affects the lungs and is especially dangerous for people with HIV and others with compromised immune systems. Fox Business

 

Goldman Sachs execs peeved at CEO for moving them to floors with ‘rank-and-file’ workers . . . Top brass, including Solomon, have descended from their plush offices on the 41st floor to a grid of cubicles on the 12th floor. It’s part of a plan first announced in December 2019, though the pandemic lockdown meant the move didn’t actually happen until this summer. In an internal memo announcing the move, Solomon said he wanted executives to be nearer to The Sky Lobby, which is on the 11th floor of Goldman’s 44-story, $2.1 billion glass tower. The lobby is full of couches and coffee for that all-important buzzword of business: collaboration. Indeed, the bank posted a picture on social media in June that showed employees and interns hanging about in the space, which also has a cafeteria and gym. Fox Business

 

 

 

What's in Biden's plan for the IRS to monitor nearly every American's bank account? The Biden administration has laid out a deeply controversial plan to crack down on wealthy tax evaders by giving the Internal Revenue Service additional scrutiny over most Americans' bank accounts. Under the proposal, banks, credit unions and other financial institutions would be required to annually report customers' account deposits and withdrawals of $600 or more to the IRS. Individual transactions would not be listed. The White House has estimated the policy, which would apply to bank, loan and investment accounts, could generate about $463 billion in additional revenue over the next decade. Treasury Department officials have said that fears of increased audits on middle-class Americans are unfounded, after the Biden administration promised to not increase audits on anyone earning less than $400,000 annually. Fox Business

 

Americans Are Quitting Jobs at Record Rates: Labor Department . . . A record number of U.S. workers voluntarily quit their jobs in August, led by bar and restaurant employees as well as retail staff, according to figures released Tuesday by the Department of Labor. The Labor Department’s monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, known as the JOLTS report, showed that 4.3 million left their jobs. The quits rose to 2.9 percent, which is an increase of 242,000 from the previous month, and represents the highest figure in data that goes back to December 2000. An increase of 157,000 quits was recorded in the accommodation and food services industry, while 26,000 more left the wholesale trade business, the figures show. State and local government education saw 25,000 more departures.
In comparison, employers laid off approximately 1.3 million workers in August, according to the agency. Epoch Times

 

Majority of Virginia parents want a say in their kids' education, Fox News poll finds . . .A new Fox News poll found that a strong majority of Virginia parents said they should tell schools what to teach their children, amid high-profile controversies over transgender policies and critical race theory in the state's schools. The poll comes just two weeks after Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe – who served as Virginia's governor from 2014 to 2018 – said he opposes the notion of parents telling schools what they should teach. When asked by Fox pollsters, "Do you believe parents should – or should not – be telling schools what to teach?" 57% of Virginia parents and 50% of likely voters told Fox News that parents should tell schools what to teach. Only 34% of parents, and 40% of likely voters, said parents "should not" tell schools what to teach. Fox News

 

Former Boeing Pilot Indicted in Probe of 737 MAX Crashes . . . A federal grand jury in Texas indicted a former Boeing Co. BA -1.96% pilot, alleging that he deceived air-safety regulators about a flight-control system later blamed for sending two 737 MAX jets into fatal nosedives. Mark A. Forkner, 49 years old, was charged with six counts of fraud related to his alleged role in persuading the Federal Aviation Administration to approve pilot-training materials that excluded references to the automated cockpit feature, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday. The crashes occurred in late 2018 and early 2019 and took 346 lives. Wall Street Journal

 

 

Cat Rests Up In Preparation For Long Night Running Up And Down Stairs . . . Local unemployed cat Autumn got another good day's rest Thursday in preparation for a long evening running up and down the stairs at random times. "Sporadically running upstairs, and then downstairs, and then upstairs again to keep my humans awake is exhausting," Autumn told reporters, yawning, as she woke up from her seventh nap of the day. "It's not an easy job, but someone has to do it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go meow by my food dish so my humans can move the food around and make it look like there's more food in there than there is."

 

The cat says she is planning on some new moves today, including a few parkour tricks like jumping off the walls and kicking over a laundry basket and then fleeing through the house like a bat out of heck. Autumn has also filed a complaint of animal abuse against her owners for only holding the door open for her for seven hours at a time while she decides if she wants to go outside or stay inside. Babylon Bee