NBC News:  “Two people have been arrested after an apparent road rage incident in South Carolina ended in a fatal shooting, authorities said Friday.

“The incident began Thursday when two drivers were involved in an altercation as they drove on Interstate 26, police in North Charleston said. They then exited onto a surface street, where Austin Blayne Faltermeier, 32, drove into the other car, driven by Parker Norman Gour, 24, they said.

“Gour responded by shooting a pistol into Faltermeier’s car, hitting a woman, who was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. A child was also in the car, they said.  Gour was arrested for investigation of manslaughter and possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime. Faltermeier was arrested and could be charged with first-degree assault, battery and unlawful conduct towards a child.”

From his Gab account.

Associated Press:  “Three adults have tested positive for the Jamestown Canyon virus, three months after an adult who became infected with the mosquito-borne virus died, the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services said Friday.

“The three adults are from Loudon, Pittsfield and Rumney, the department said in a news release. The person from Loudon wasn’t hospitalized and is in good health. The others were hospitalized with neurological symptoms. They are now recovering at home, the department said. ‘With these three JCV infections happening in early fall, it is important to remember the season of mosquitos is longer than just the summer months,’ Dr. Benjamin Chan, state epidemiologist, said in a statement. ‘Mosquitos can continue to transmit infections like Jamestown Canyon Virus until there is a mosquito-killing hard frost.’

“Early symptoms can include fever, muscle aches, headaches, and fatigue. Central nervous system disease, including meningitis or encephalitis, can occur with the virus, as well as with two other mosquito-borne viruses, Eastern Equine Encephalitis, and West Nile. In August, the department reported that Jamestown Canyon virus was identified as a contributing cause to the death of an adult from Dublin, New Hampshire. The state has detected 18 cases of the virus since the first report of the disease in the state in 2013.”

“We seriously need to have a conversation, that if you’re gonna have anyone above a certain age in a position of power–whether it’s the House, whether it’s the Senate, whether it’s Vice President, whether it’s President–you should have some sort of cognitive test, like, just like you have to show your tax returns, so that people have faith in what you’re doing,” former Trump administration official Nimrata Haley declares, without noting that Donald Trump never released his tax returns after pledging to do so.

The US economy added 531,000 nonfarm jobs in October, more than analysts predicted, and revisions to the previous two months’ reports increased job creation statistics by nearly a quarter million jobs, according to the report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In additional signs of a strengthening economy, the unemployment rate fell to 4.6% and wages rose by 0.4% month-over-month.  In a year-over-year comparison, wages have risen 4.9% since October 2020.  Besides the top line number, the BLS report revises the August job creation number from up by 117,000, from +366,000 to +483,000, and the September number was increased by 118,000, from +194,000 to +312,000.

Since Joe Biden’s inauguration, the US economy has added 5.58 million jobs, more than double the number of jobs of any other first-year president since the end of World War II, and more than the total number of jobs created under the entire presidencies of Donald Trump (-2.96 million), George W. Bush (+1.26 million), George HW Bush (+2.64 million), Gerald Ford (+2.06 million), John F. Kennedy (+3.57 million) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (+3.54 million). 

On Thursday Democratic Wisconsin State Senator Chris Larsen tweeted “Today in Wisconsin GOP hypocrisy: Representative Shae Sortwell, who authored a ‘free speech’ bill to force social media companies to allow misinformation on their platforms, has now decided to block the public from commenting on his own Facebook posts”. Larsen was gentle enough to leave out the reason why, which was the Green Bay Press-Gazette’s reporting on a felony child abuse investigation against Sortwell that was dropped in 2013 before he had been elected to the state senate, which undoubtedly caused him to be hit with a torrent of angry replies on his Facebook page.

“Republican Glenn Youngkin won in Virginia primarily by positioning himself as a solid parental advocate, a model that many GOP strategists are eager to replicate for the midterm elections. That might not be as easy as they think. For that template to work, the Republican party needs candidates who live up to the image of kindhearted, family-minded people. But while Youngkin was the most visible Republican in 2021, 2022 will bring a bevy of candidates to the fore. And some of the highest-profile GOP primary candidates for the 2022 races have a history of allegations of violence against women. Herschel Walker, Eric Greitens, and Sean Parnell are all considered serious contenders to win the Republican nominations for Senate seats in, respectively, Georgia, Missouri, and Pennsylvania. Each of them has been accused of aggressively threatening and violating women in their lives. If they win the nominations, it may complicate life for the aspiring Youngkins of 2022.”

“What’s more likely to happen? That these candidates nationalize Youngkin’s kind of messaging or that the Democrats nationalize their history of abuse? If Abigail Spanberger has to answer for the Squad, then there’s no reason Republican candidates in places such as Wisconsin and North Carolina won’t have to answer for these alleged abusers. All of this depends on the competing campaigns. Youngkin has given the Republican party a playbook for 2022. The players the GOP is choosing to field, however, aren’t well situated to execute it” – The Bulwark.

Time for another Jack Chat.

And this might be the most important one yet, so please watch and share. pic.twitter.com/Nmc03ATpTV

— Jack Ciattarelli (@Jack4NJ) November 4, 2021

Washington Post: “Parthenogenesis, literally meaning ‘virgin origin’ in Greek, describes a form of reproduction in which an egg becomes an embryo without the introduction of sperm – and only a select few animals can do it. Often, they’re invertebrates like honey bees and scorpions. In rare cases, vertebrates like certain kinds of fish and snakes are capable of the ‘virgin births.'”

“Even more rarely do birds reproduce that way. Turkeys, chickens, pigeons and certain kinds of finches have laid eggs without the help of a male, though in most cases, their offspring died before they could fully develop. Now, scientists at the San Diego Zoo say the California condor – the largest flying bird in North America with a 10-foot wingspan – can be added to the list. In a paper published last week in the Journal of Heredity, the scientists said parthenogenesis has been observed in condors for the first time”

“Pfizer Inc. said its Covid-19 pill reduced hospitalizations and deaths in high-risk patients by 89%, a result that has the potential to upend how the disease caused by the coronavirus is treated and alter the course of the pandemic. The drugmaker said in a statement on Friday that it was no longer taking new patients in a clinical trial of the treatment ‘due to the overwhelming efficacy’ and planned to submit the findings to U.S. regulatory authorities for emergency authorization as soon as possible. The results mean there are now two promising candidates for treating Covid-19 patients early in the course of the disease. Last month, Merck and partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics submitted their experimental pill to regulators after a study showed it slashed the risk of serious illness or death by half in patients with mild-to-moderate Covid-19” – Bloomberg.

CNN: “The House probe into the Capitol insurrection is making its most significant strides yet in gaining understanding of Donald Trump’s behind-the-scenes maneuvering before and during his coup attempt against American democracy. The Democratic-led committee is acting on multiple fronts but is in a race against time. First, it is confronted by the ex-President’s obstruction as he tries to dodge accountability. And haunting the panel’s every move is the possibility of a new GOP-led House after the 2022 midterm elections that would likely close it down. The committee was in court Thursday fighting Trump’s bid to keep documents about what happened in the White House on January 6 on dusty National Archives shelves. It’s firing off new subpoenas as it tries to sketch a true picture of what really happened in the days running up to that shocking day.”

“And on Friday, a key member of the inner circle that gathered around Trump ahead of those dark hours is expected to show up on Capitol Hill for an interview. Ultimately, the committee is charged with producing clarity about one of the most aberrant days in American history. Although what happened now feels less alarming, partly because of the repetition of video of Trump supporters invading the Capitol and the attempts by Republicans and conservative media to rewrite history, it is still staggering. An American President refused to accept the result of a fair, democratic election and tried to defy the will of voters by using the power of his office and violence to steal another term. In an apparently positive sign for the investigators, a federal judge Thursday expressed skepticism over Trump’s broad assertions of executive privilege over hundreds of documents related to his actions on January 6 that he is struggling to keep secret.”

I'm just gonna make a blanket statement to all the people that are calling me and texting me. You win!!! I'm going to prison. So you don't need to contact me anymore. Pop champagne and then rejoice. But just leave me alone. Thank you

— Jenna Ryan 🇺🇸 (@dotjenna) November 4, 2021

“Rudy Giuliani has openly admitted what has been obvious to everyone for some time – that he doesn’t always check the veracity of his ridiculous conspiracy theories before he spouts them in public. The admission comes from a video of Giuliani’s testimony in the defamation case brought against him by Dominion Voting Systems – the voting-machines company that Trumpworld figures falsely accused of facilitating voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.”

“Under questioning, Giuliani said he’d heard that the heads of Dominion had met Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to demonstrate how they fixed votes for former President Hugo Chavez – a conspiracy theory that Giuliani later shared publicly. Asked if he’d checked if the claim was accurate first, he said: ‘Sometimes I go and look myself… This time I didn’t have the time to do it… It’s not my job, in a fast-moving case, to go out and investigate every piece of evidence that was given to me. Otherwise, you’re never going to write a story'” – Daily Beast.

CNN: “Kari Lake, the Arizona gubernatorial candidate recently endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has embraced fringe far-right figures in her campaign events, including publicly thanking a Nazi sympathizer for his support and appearing with figures linked to the QAnon conspiracy, a CNN KFile review of her appearances has found. At a campaign event in late August, Lake posed for a photo and video with far-right personalities Ethan Schmidt-Crockett, the founder of the AntiMaskersClub, who harassed a store specializing in wigs for cancer patients this summer because it required customers to wear masks, and Greyson Arnold, a Nazi sympathizer who has a history of making White nationalist, racist, antisemitic and pro-Nazi statements, including once calling Adolf Hitler ‘a complicated historical figure which many people misunderstand.’ ‘Anti-maskers club here with Kari Lake,’ said Schmidt-Crockett alongside Lake and Arnold in the video. ‘America First,’ they each said. After Arnold posted a photo of the trio on Twitter, Lake replied, ‘It was a pleasure to meet you, too.'”

(CAUTION:  Offensive language in clip.)  A Pennsylvania high school hockey team will play the rest of their home games with no students allowed in the arena as one of the punishments for the school’s students chanting misogynistic cheers at the female goaltender of an opposing team, WTAE ABC-4 Pittsburgh reports.

The students of Armstrong High School chanted “She’s a whore” and “Suck our dicks” at the girl in goal for the Mars Hockey Club, and no parent, coach or other school official tried to intervene to stop the chants.  News reports said she was driven to tears when hearing the chants.

For the rest of the season, Armstrong will forgo having students in the arena; adults and siblings of team players will be allowed to attend games.  The school must have an administrator at all games, home and away.  And the team is put on probation.

TheDrive:  “U.S. officials believe that a DJI Mavic 2, a small quadcopter-type drone, with a thick copper wire attached underneath it via nylon cords was likely at the center of an attempted attack on a power substation in Pennsylvania last year. An internal U.S. government report that was issued last month says that this is the first time such an incident has been officially assessed as a possible drone attack on energy infrastructure in the United States, but that this is likely to become more commonplace as time goes on. This is a reality The War Zone has sounded the alarm about in the past, including when we were first to report on a still unexplained series of drone flights near the Palo Verde nuclear powerplant in Arizona in 2019.

“ABC News was first to report on the Joint Intelligence Bulletin (JIB) covering the incident in Pennsylvania last year, which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) published on Oct. 28, 2021. The document, which ABC obtained a copy of, but only released a small portion of, is marked unclassified, but parts also labeled Law Enforcement Sensitive (LES) and For Official Use Only (FOUO). Other outlets have since obtained copies of this document, which reportedly says that this likely attack took place on July 16, 2020, but does not identify where the substation in question was located.

New York Times:  “A White House aide who traveled with President Biden to Scotland tested positive for the coronavirus this week and remains in quarantine abroad, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a medical issue.

“The aide tested positive on Tuesday after taking a lateral flow test, which was a daily requirement to attend the United Nations climate summit held in Glasgow, but has not shown any symptoms of Covid-19. President Biden was not in close contact with the aide, the official said.  The aide has taken subsequent tests, but those came back inconclusive, the official said. The aide remains in quarantine in Scotland, and is waiting on the results of a PCR test.

“Mr. Biden tested negative for the virus on Tuesday, the official said. The president, who is 78, received a booster shot in September.  Aides who had close contact with the person who tested positive traveled separately from the president from Scotland to the United States, the official said, and have tested negative since. The positive case was first reported by Bloomberg.”

“IT’S OFFICIAL: Vote on the Rule, BBB and BIF tomorrow, per senior Dem aide. Rules meeting tonight.”  –Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News

The account from Vice of Tucker Carlson getting back surgery hours before going on the air Wednesday–before and during which he was pumped full of opioids–is colorful and provides insightful into his superficial personality.  It took a crew member walking him through the problems with addictions for Tucker to actually empathize with the people addicted.

Associated Press:  “Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey is defying a demand that he stop using federal coronavirus relief money to fund an education grant program that can only go to schools without mask mandates.  The Republican governor also is continuing a program that gives private school vouchers to parents upset that their children’s schools require masks or quarantines after being exposed to COVID-19.

“In a letter sent to the U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday, Ducey’s federal grant team manager ignored the department’s demand that he stop using the money. Instead, Jason Mistlebauer said the money was appropriately being used to help students who were harmed by school mask mandates.  ‘In Arizona, disadvantaged communities bear the brunt of overbearing measures and the state wants to ensure that low-income students are not disproportionately affected by mask mandates rules and school closures,’ Mistlebauer wrote.

“Despite the rationale Mistlebauer laid out, a $163 million grant program Ducey created goes to schools in high-income areas, but only if they do not require masks. And a much smaller program that gives private school vouchers to parents whose children’s public schools have mask mandates or require isolation after COVID-19 exposures doesn’t only target low-income children. Applicants can earn up to 350% of the federal poverty level, which equals $92,750 for a family of four.  Ducey, a Republican, created the grant programs in August to put pressure on school districts that have defied the state’s ban on mask mandates. That ban was later overturned by the courts, but Ducey has not removed the limits on which school districts qualify.”