Washington Post:  “The on-again, off-again Subway tuna lawsuit is on again, and this time the plaintiffs are revealing their test results. They claim that 19 of 20 tuna samples from Subway locations throughout Southern California had no detectable tuna DNA, and all of the samples contained at least one other animal protein, whether chicken, pork or cattle.

“A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order prohibiting mask mandates in school violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ruling allows local officials to again set their own rules on masking” reports the Texas Tribune.

Associated Press:  “One of the three white men standing trial for the death of Ahmaud Arbery said they had the 25-year-old Black man ‘trapped like a rat’ before he was fatally shot, a police investigator testified Wednesday.  Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves and chased Arbery in a pickup truck after they spotted him running in their coastal Georgia neighborhood on Feb. 23, 2020. A neighbor, William ‘Roddie’ Bryan, joined the pursuit in his own truck and took cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery three times at close range with a shotgun.

“More than two months passed before the three men were arrested on charges of murder and other crimes, after the graphic video leaked online and deepened a national reckoning over racial injustice.  Glynn County police Sgt. Roderic Nohilly told the jury Wednesday he spoke with Greg McMichael at police headquarters a few hours after the shooting. He said Greg McMichael, 65, told him Arbery ‘wasn’t out for no Sunday jog. He was getting the hell out of there.’

“The father told Nohilly he recognized Arbery because he had been recorded by security cameras a few times inside a neighboring home under construction. Greg McMichael said they gave chase to try to stop Arbery from escaping the subdivision.  ‘He was trapped like a rat,’ Greg McMichael said, according to a transcript of their recorded interview Nohilly read in court. ‘I think he was wanting to flee and he realized that something, you know, he was not going to get away.’

MLive:  “A federal court judge has given final approval to a historic partial settlement of lawsuits related to the Flint water crisis.  U.S. District Court Judge Judith E. Levy filed her approval order Wednesday, Nov. 10, calling the $626-million settlement fair, reasonable and adequate.

“’The settlement reached here is a remarkable achievement for many reasons, not the least of which is that it sets forth a comprehensive compensation program and timeline that is consistent for every qualifying participant, regardless of whether they are members of a class or are non-class individuals represented by their own counsel,’ the 178-page order says in part. ‘For the reasons set forth below, the objections to the settlement are denied, and final approval of the settlement is granted.’

“Children who were 6 years old and younger during the Flint water crisis are the biggest potential beneficiaries of the settlement with the state of Michigan, the city of Flint, McLaren Regional Medical Center, and Rowe Professional Services.  Nearly 80 percent of the settlement, which state officials have said is likely the largest in Michigan history, would be paid to children who were younger than 18 when they were first exposed to Flint River water, which contained elevated levels of lead and bacteria in 2014 and 2015.  Levy’s approval comes despite objections from some Flint residents, including former Flint Mayor Karen Weaver.”

Former President Donald J Trump has lost People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” award for the 36th year in a row, the celebrity media outlet confirmed Wednesday in an article celebrating the coronation of the far more affable and conventionally attractive Hollywood actor Paul Rudd. The defeat comes off the heels of another major setback for the 45th president in which his claim of executive privilege over White House documents relevant to the assault on the US Capitol on January 6th of this year was rejected by a federal judge. It is unknown, however widely assumed that the former president and corrupt businessman will have a fake People Magazine cover photoshopped to make it appear as if he were actually awarded the title of “Sexiest Man Alive” for 2021, as he probably has done for other years, maybe even all of them.

After the Spotsylvania County (Virginia) School Board voted to remove books with “sexually explicit” material from school libraries, two members of the board recommended the district burn the book to keep them out of people’s hands, the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star reports.

“I think we should throw those books in a fire,” Rabih “Rob” Abuismail, a one-time chair of the 88th Legislative District Republican Party Canvass, said.  Livingston Twigg, chimed in, saying he wants to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”

One of the books they want burned is “33 Snowfish” by Adam Rapp, the 2004 winner of American Library Association’s Best Book for Young Adults.  The novel, according to the publisher’s description, “takes us to the depths of human suffering – and then shows us the resilience of human spirit” by following three teenagers who fight sexual abuse, drug addiction and homelessness. 

Transcript of voicemail received by Michigan Congressman Fred Upton, one of the 13 House Republicans who voted with 19 Senate Republicans to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill, after fellow Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted his office number and encouraged her fans to call him and the 12 other “traitors” on Monday. And then again on Tuesday.

“The key to Republican victory in 2022 is supercharged support from the MAGA base combined with the more passive disenchantment of a slice of the electorate that is downcast over the economy and COVID and not really thinking about Trump even if they don’t like him. The key for Democrats is to make it as hard as possible to straddle that divide. Trump will give them countless opportunities. The infrastructure bill is a cudgel that can be used in various ways against House Republicans who voted against it (think Rep. Young Kim in California) and those who voted for (think Rep. Malliotakis in New York). There’s a precedent for this. Actually there are tons of them. But there’s one that is particularly apt. Republicans stormed back into power in the 2010 midterm. But it took them until 2014 to recapture the Senate. There are a bunch of reasons.”

“But the big one is that in 2010 and to a lesser but still real degree in 2012 they kept nominating nutball candidates. Harry Reid won his last term in the Senate in large part because his campaign helped the GOP along in ditching a more palatable candidate for Tea Party yahoo Sharron Angle, who Reid defeated. Gov. Sununu’s decision not to run – which seems to have caught Republicans completely off guard – appears to be part of a pattern in which top tier GOP recruits are proving hard to convince, in part because being a Trump toady in a party-line vote Senate just doesn’t seem like much fun. Much remains outside Democrats control. But this isn’t one of them. Democrats – certainly everyone with any responsibility for campaigns – needs to spend the next twelve months working over, irritating, inflaming these fissures” – Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo.

Associated Press:  “The giant Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has declared a regional drought emergency due to record dry conditions.  Directors made the declaration Tuesday in a resolution that calls for increased efforts to maximize conservation. Metropolitan is a wholesaler to 26 local water agencies that supply a region with 19 million people.

“‘We need immediate action to preserve and stretch our limited State Water Project supplies,’ board Chairwoman Gloria D. Gray said. ‘Southern California on average gets about one-third of its water from Northern California via the state project. Next year, we’ll be lucky to get a small fraction of that.’  Water years 2020 and 2021 were the driest two-year sequence on record in the state, and in August, Lake Oroville, the main State Water Project reservoir, reached its lowest point since being filled in the 1970s, MWD said.

“Metropolitan has been trying to preserve State Water Project supplies by instead delivering Colorado River water to as much of the region as possible but some areas remain dependent on state project water.  Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded the state’s emergency drought declaration to include all of California, including major population centers. That order gives state water officials permission to enact mandatory water restrictions.”

“Two California men and one Texas man have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Austin, Texas, for their alleged involvement a scheme to operate two fraudulent political action committees (PACs) during the 2016 federal election cycle. The indictment was unsealed yesterday after being returned on Nov. 2. As alleged in the indictment, Matthew Nelson Tunstall, 34, of Los Angeles, California; Robert Reyes, Jr., 38, of Hollister, California; and Kyle George Davies, 29, of Austin, Texas, solicited contributions to Liberty Action Group PAC [Pro-Trump] and Progressive Priorities PAC [Pro-Hillary] under the guise that the PACs were affiliated with or meaningfully supporting specified candidates for public office. Between January 2016 and April 2017, the defendants obtained approximately $3.5 million from unwitting donors based on false and misleading representations and used those funds to enrich themselves and to pay for additional fraudulent advertisements soliciting donations”

“Tunstall and Reyes are also alleged to have laundered more than $350,000 in illegal proceeds from the scheme through a third-party vendor to conceal the use of those funds for their own benefit. If convicted of all counts, Tunstall and Reyes both face a maximum total penalty of 125 years in prison. If convicted of all counts, Davies faces a maximum total penalty of 65 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors” – DOJ Press Release.

From a CNN article “Group making anti-Trump robocalls is closely tied to a pro-Trump PAC” published February 17th, 2017: “During the 2016 election, a political action group called Liberty Action Group raised nearly $3 million through radio advertisements and robocalls by asking for contributions to help elect Donald Trump… Now, the individuals behind Liberty Action Group have turned their attention to the progressive movement, soliciting donations for a different group, Progressive Priorities PAC. Several people have reported receiving phone calls in the past month from Progressive Priorities PAC that play a recording of former President Barack Obama followed by a request to contribute to ‘help Obama impeach Trump.'”

NEW: Directing @TEAinfo to investigate any criminal activity in public schools related to the availability of pornographic material & to report such instances for prosecution to the fullest extent of the law. https://t.co/JhfPtKWdrm

— Gov. Greg Abbott (@GovAbbott) November 10, 2021

“Prices paid by U.S. consumers rose 6.2% from a year earlier, the most since 1990, a broad-based increase adding to evidence of building inflationary pressures. The CPI also rose 0.9% from September. Both advances exceeded all estimates in a Bloomberg survey” Bloomberg reports.

“They lost the governor’s race in Virginia. They had a bad scare in New Jersey. They’re the clear underdogs in the battle for the U.S. House. But Democrats saw glimmers of hope in the fight for the Senate on Tuesday when a top Republican prospect decided not to run. In New Hampshire, popular Republican Gov. Chris Sununu shocked party leaders when he announced that he wouldn’t launch a bid for a Democratic-held seat, preferring instead to seek re-election for a fourth term as governor. With one-third of the Senate up for grabs next year and a handful of competitive states likely to decide control, Democrats are looking for any advantage as they try to defend their majority. They’ve been getting some help recently from Republicans.”

“From New England to Arizona, Republicans are struggling to land top-tier recruits even as the deteriorating political climate for Democrats puts them in a strong position to win back the chamber. Party operatives find themselves having to keep a close eye on several Senate hopefuls they see as unelectable, a familiar problem for the GOP. Brian Walsh, a former Senate GOP campaign operative, said he sees ‘echoes of 2010’ in the pro-Republican political environment and the potential for subpar candidates to cost Republicans the majority. ‘Arguably, Republicans lost five seats between 2010 and 2012 because of bad general election candidates,’ he said. ‘I’m not saying that’s necessarily going to happen here. But broadly, candidates matter'” – NBC News.

On Tuesday, Steve Bannon hosted former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on his white nationalist podcast, asking “Are you saying sir, that you would strip these people of their committees?” to which Meadows answered “Absolutely, listen they stripped Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committees for… [brief pause as Meadows considers his words] not even voting against the Republican Party [he didn’t want to say they removed her over the ‘Jew Space Lasers’ thing, and calling school shootings false flag attacks so he just comes up with some nonsense]. These people voted FOR Joe Biden, for an infrastructure bill that will clear the way for more socialist spending, that quite frankly gives Joe Biden a win. I don’t know how you can send a clearer message than saying listen, uh, you know ‘obviously you’re not on our team…'”

CNN: “Roughly three-quarters of adults believe Facebook is making American society worse, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds, with about half saying they know somebody who was persuaded to believe in a conspiracy theory because of the site’s content. Americans say, 76% to 11%, that Facebook makes society worse, not better, according to the survey. Another 13% say it has no effect either way. That broadly negative appraisal holds across gender, age and racial lines. Even frequent Facebook users – those who report using the site at least several times a week – say 70% to 14% that the social network harms, rather than helps, US society. Although majorities across parties say Facebook is doing more harm than good, that feeling spikes among Republicans (82%).”

“Among the majority overall who think Facebook is worsening society, however, there’s less of an overwhelming consensus on whether or not the platform itself is primarily to blame: 55% say that the way some people use Facebook is more at fault, with 45% saying it’s more due to the way Facebook itself is run. Overall, about one-third of the public – including 44% of Republicans and 27% of Democrats – say both that Facebook is making American society worse and that Facebook itself is more at fault than its users.”

“Belarus has trained Afghan and Iraqi war veterans to carry out armed attacks on the Polish border, a former regime insider has warned. ‘The migration crisis is being used by [Belarus president Alexander] Lukashenko to insert into EU territory people who have [military] experience and who additionally undertook training on Belarusian territory to realise terrorist acts,’ Pavel Latushka, Belarus’ former ambassador to France and Poland and former culture minister, told EUobserver. He spoke amid escalating clashes between migrants and Polish border guards, which caused international alarm on Monday (8 November). ‘Next, Lukashenko will go for a local military conflict on the EU border, and in the meantime he will sell the picture to the world about a humanitarian crisis, the Europeans being to blame,’ Latushka, who fled to Warsaw after joining the pro-democracy movement in Belarus, said. ‘This is a form of Nazi-era propaganda,’ he said.”

“The Afghan and Iraqi veterans were handpicked and flown to Belarus between July and September, he noted. They were trained at a base near the village of Opsa, in north-west Belarus, belonging to ‘Osam’, the Special Active Measures Department of Belarus’ State Border Committee, he added. The training was carried out with the help of Belarus special forces from the ‘Marjina Horka’ brigade, which had fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and with advisers from Russia’s ‘GRU’ military intelligence, Latushka added. ‘Iraqi citizens were trained there [the Osam base], now they are training Afghans from the territory of Tajikistan, who have combat experience. Of course, it’s not dozens of people being trained, it’s units of individuals,’ he said. ‘They’re preparing clashes on the Belarus-EU border with the use of weapons,’ he added. Latushka said his revelations came from ‘sources high-up in Belarusian intelligence services'” – EU Observer

AP: “The CEO of Pfizer was arrested Friday by FBI agents, charged with fraud and was being held in federal custody while awaiting a bail hearing. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has not been arrested by federal agents nor has he been charged with fraud. A spokesperson for the company told The Associated Press the allegations are false. Further, Bourla is not listed in federal or local inmate rosters and a search of federal court records did not turn up any fraud cases against him. Bourla has remained active on social media and has made multiple TV appearances over the past several days. A conservative blog published an inaccurate article Friday alleging the CEO of the pharmaceutical company Pfizer had been arrested at his home in a suburb of New York City and charged with fraud in connection with the company’s COVID-19 vaccine.”

“The article, published by The Conservative Beaver, erroneously stated that Bourla faced fraud charges ‘for his role in deceiving customers on the effectiveness of the COVID-19 ’vaccine.’’ It also claimed Pfizer was ‘accused of falsifying data, and paying out large bribes.’ The site, which says it is based in Canada, did not provide any evidence for its claims and attributed some information to an unnamed FBI agent. The Conservative Beaver did not respond to a request seeking evidence for its claims or any comment on the matter.”

“A Twitter spokesperson confirmed to me that Newsmax correspondent Emerald Robinson’s account ‘was permanently suspended for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy.’ Newsmax benched her last week for her anti-vax posts. No word yet on when she’ll return on air.” —Justin Baragona of The Daily Beast