CNN: “The House select committee investigating January 6 has postponed its request for dozens of pages of records from the Trump White House even though the documents were determined by the current White House counsel to be relevant to its probe. While the exact nature of these records remains unclear, the committee’s move to ‘defer’ the request following discussions with President Joe Biden’s White House suggests the committee may be paring back the number of documents it’s pursuing because of a potentially lengthy court battle Trump has already launched over executive privilege. The committee is making clear that it has not withdrawn its request entirely and could seek the records at a later date.”

Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington (CREW):  “Newly obtained documents show the full extent to which former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his wife were willing to go to advance their own political and business interests on the taxpayer dime.

“While previous reporting has shown that the Madison Dinners hosted by the couple—lavish dinner parties attended by a mix of celebrities, political operatives, government officials and public figures, planned with the help of State Department staff—had little to do with State Department business, the new records reveal the Pompeos repeatedly jumped at the opportunity to abuse taxpayer funds for their own gain.

“‘We are already seeing connections and relationships form that wouldn’t have, but for these dinners,’ Susan Pompeo wrote to State Department staff following a successful dinner in 2018.  Invitees were meticulously broken down into four sections: media, foreign diplomat, government and private sector. Susan Pompeo would provide specific guidelines to staff creating the guest lists: ‘In the government category—having two couples is good. In the private sector, two or three couples.’ It appears that for each dinner, the Pompeos only invited one diplomatic guest.

The Daily Beast:  “This spring, after receiving a number of federal warnings about a series of accounting errors, the campaign committee for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) embarked on a financial reckoning.  As a result of that reckoning, the campaign has now had to correct a slew of reports, and two of Nunes’ affiliated committees removed his treasurer—his mom—as their government contact.

“But over the last few months, Nunes’ mother, Toni Nunes, has filed a confounding series of financial disclosures. The reports attempt to correct an array of accounting errors and oversights, some dating back to 2004, and because the errors carry over from one accounting period to the next, all subsequent filings were also incorrect—meaning the California Republican’s books have been off for 17 years.

“But even after the embarrassing cascade of notices that inundated the campaign over the last year, Nunes’ mom has continued filing and signing reports herself. One of the corrected reports she filed this month—itself a correction of a correction—was flagged for additional errors a few days after she submitted it.

This week Hunter Walker “a reporter” emailed my office but misgendered me, triggering hurt feelings & my search for a safe space far away from bigoted false pronouns. Will Twitter treat @RollingStone @hunterw the same as @mtgreenee and @Jim_Banks? pic.twitter.com/Q9VhTHgYzV

— Louie Gohmert (@replouiegohmert) October 27, 2021

CNBC: “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has invested up to $50,000 in the SPAC stock linked to former President Donald Trump’s planned social media platform. According to a public disclosure, Greene purchased a stake in Digital World Acquisition Corp on Friday. The stake is worth at least $15,000 but no more than $50,000. DWAC, a special purpose acquisition company, last week said it would merge with Trump’s planned new social media company the Trump Media & Technology Group.”

“The reports of hateful and violent posts on Facebook started pouring in on the night of May 28 last year, soon after then-President Donald Trump sent a warning on social media that looters in Minneapolis would be shot. It had been three days since Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on the neck of George Floyd for more than eight minutes until the 46-year-old Black man lost consciousness, showing no signs of life. A video taken by a bystander had been viewed millions of times online. Protests had taken over Minnesota’s largest city and would soon spread throughout cities across America. But it wasn’t until after Trump posted about Floyd’s death that the reports of violence and hate speech increased ‘rapidly’ on Facebook across the country, an internal company analysis of the ex-president’s social media post reveals.”

“‘These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd and I won’t let that happen,’ Trump wrote at 9:53 a.m. on May 28 from his Twitter and Facebook accounts. ‘Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts the shooting starts!’ The former president has since been suspended from both Twitter and Facebook. Leaked Facebook documents provide a first-hand look at how Trump’s social media posts ignited more anger in an already deeply divided country that was eventually lit ‘on fire’ with reports of hate speech and violence across the platform. Facebook’s own internal, automated controls, meant to catch posts that violate rules, predicted with almost 90% certainty that Trump broke the tech company’s rules against inciting violence. Yet, the tech giant took no action on Trump’s message. Offline, the next day, protests – some of which turned violent – engulfed nearly every U.S. city, big and small” the AP reports.

One thing that’s important to understand here and not 100% clarified in the AP article is that Trump himself never posted directly to Facebook, but there was an API configured to automatically duplicate all of the tweets, immediately as they were posted, from the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account to Trump’s verified official Facebook page. Everyone automatically associates Trump with his obnoxious, hateful tweets, and correctly so, but when talking about his reach on Facebook it should also be noted that it was 100% the same content.

“At least one policeman was martyred and dozens injured as thousands of workers of the proscribed Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) clashed with law-enforcement personnel near Sadhoke in Punjab’s Gujranwala district on Wednesday. Police spokesperson Nayab Haider said there were reports of more police deaths in the violence, but that he could not immediately provide a number. Local sources identified the martyred policeman as Kasur ASI M. Akbar.”

“More than 30 policemen injured in the clashes were taken to the Muridke Tehsil Headquarters Hospital, while 35 injured personnel were shifted to the Sheikhupura District Headquarters Hospital, according to Medical Superintendent Dr Azhar Amin. Meanwhile, a Punjab police spokesman told Reuters: ‘TLP activists used SMG, AK 47 and pistols to target police officials as the result of which several officials were martyred.’ Videos on social media showed the aftermath of shelling reportedly carried out during the clashes. Dawn.com could not verify the claims. The TLP claimed several of their activists had also been killed or wounded, according to Reuters. Police said the clashes were triggered after they tried to block the TLP activists’ march towards Islamabad” – Dawn.

pic.twitter.com/Rr5bxgMCK0

— Pete Ricketts (@Ricketts4Senate) October 27, 2021

Ricketts was first elected in 2014 and is ineligible for a third term.

Bloomberg: “Both Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin are imploring Virginians to cast ballots early in their hotly contested gubernatorial contest, which has drawn national attention. Signs point to Democrats holding a lead in early votes cast. McAuliffe is a former Virginia governor and former chair of the DNC. Youngkin, a former co-chief executive officer of the Carlyle Group Inc., is also encouraging supporters to vote early, even though Republicans are more apt to wait until Election Day to vote. As of Tuesday morning, 724,965 ballots have been cast in the state, more than three times the number of early votes cast in the 2017 gubernatorial election, with heavily Democratic areas like Richmond and Charlottesville leading the way.”

“Virginia does not have party registration, so it’s not known exactly how the early votes are breaking down. While the majority of the early votes are cast in Democratic enclaves of the commonwealth, it’s unclear how many of those might be crossover votes. Yet a recent Emerson College poll showed 53% of respondents who said they had already voted supported McAuliffe, while 46% backed Youngkin. A CBS News poll showed an even wider split, with 61% of respondents who said they had already voted backing McAuliffe, and 37% supporting Youngkin.”

“A useful lesson to bear in mind when we contemplate what allows powerful people to instruct less powerful people that it is high time to move on: a lack of personal stake in the mess they seek to leave behind. We see this dynamic when, after every shattering school shooting, politicians with the power to change laws, like Sen. Ted Cruz, explain that it is instead time to move on. It’s easy for Ted Cruz to move on when his children are still alive. ‘Time to move on’ has unsurprisingly come to represent the bulk of the GOP response to Trump’s actions, both while he was in office and after.”

“‘Let’s move past this’ was the best response to the behaviors that triggered both the first and second impeachments, and the behaviors that helped foment an insurrection at the Capitol and continue to undermine public confidence in the vote. ‘Let us look forward, not backward,’ Oklahoma Republican Tom Cole said on the House floor during the debate over Trump’s second impeachment last January. Never mind that the failure to hold him to account in the first impeachment led to the horrors of a mass effort to subvert the election and also led to a failed second impeachment. No, the effort to impeach him most recently was still met with the insistence by the bulk of his party that it was time to move on. Of course it was easy for them to suggest that it’s time. It’s always time to move on if your life is unchanged by what came before” writes Dalia Lithwick in Slate.

Clipped this essay because it’s a bit myopic. I’m not saying Lithwick should’ve bothsides-ed the situation, but by not acknowledging the right wing’s absolute screaming, clawing at the door in between desperate, half-choked sobs, kicking wildly while rolling on the floor, gurgling spittle, face beyond swollen from tears nuclear meltdown over their immortal holy Christian warrior president losing reelection, she’s not letting on the simple truth that it actually feels kind of good to say “fuck you, deal with it” to your perceived lessers. More people on the left should embrace that feeling of power when it comes. Watching one’s opponents squirm is fun.

Haaretz: “Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai drew his pistol during a meeting at the police HQ in Jerusalem to use the attached laser as a pointer in a presentation, jolting the other participants, senior officers reported. ‘Another officer who did that would have immediately been disciplined,’ an officer said, noting that Shabtai returned the pistol to the holster on his hip within a short time.”

“On Tuesday, a Florida federal judge ruled that former President Donald Trump’s status as a US president doesn’t exclude him from Twitter’s terms of service, according to court documents seen by Insider. In July, Trump filed a lawsuit in Florida against Twitter and its CEO for suspending his account permanently on January 7, a day after the Capitol siege. The suspension was made on the grounds of Trump inciting violence through the platform, said Twitter at the time.”

“The former president cited censorship concerns in his lawsuit, saying that social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Google were ‘silencing’ conservative voices and were being coerced by Dem lawmakers. On Tuesday, Florida District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr granted Twitter’s motion to transfer the case to the Northern District of California, as required by a clause in the social media company’s user agreement signed by all Twitter users. Trump’s lawyers argued that he was exempt from the clause because he was sitting president at the time of his account’s suspension, and that it was in the public’s interest to keep the case in Florida. They failed to convince Judge Scola. ‘The Court finds that Trump’s status as President of the United States does not exclude him from the requirements of the forum selection clause in Twitter’s Terms of Service,’ he said.” – Insider.

Washington Post:  “The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is expected to subpoena John Eastman, the pro-Trump legal scholar who outlined scenarios for denying Joe Biden the presidency, according to the panel’s chairman.

“’It will happen,’ Chair Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) said in an interview Tuesday of a subpoena for Eastman, who played a key role in the legal operation that was run out of a “command center” at the Willard Hotel in Washington in the days and hours leading up to Jan. 6. Thompson did not provide a timeline for when the subpoena will be issued.  The committee has requested documents and communications related to Eastman’s legal advice and analysis on how President Donald Trump could seek to overturn the election results and remain in office.

“Eastman told The Washington Post last week that he had not been contacted by the panel investigating the insurrection, but a person familiar with the select committee’s work disputed that claim and said investigators have been in touch with Eastman. This person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations, added that a subpoena would be avoidable if Eastman cooperated with the committee’s investigation voluntarily. The committee is expected to issue subpoenas to other witnesses in the days ahead. Eastman confirmed in subsequent text messages late Tuesday that the committee had contacted him.”

Politico:  “The White House has told allies in Congress that climate change programs in Democrats’ spending bill will range between $500 billion and $555 billion, according to four sources familiar with the negotiations.  While the package will exclude Democrats’ proposed system of payments and penalties to push power companies to increase renewable energy, the plan being developed will allow President Joe Biden to head to the global climate talks next week in Glasgow, Scotland with a framework for the largest-ever U.S. investment in fighting climate change.

“‘We continue to engage with Congress on this incredibly important topic and see the ball move forward. We feel that the conversations have been accelerating in the right direction,’ a senior administration official said in a Tuesday call with reporters that did not discuss the topline climate figures.

“Passing legislation would help Biden make good on his pledge to cut U.S. planet-warming emissions 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels this decade. While the climate total is less than the $600 billion in Democrats’ original $3.5 trillion plan, it comes at a crucial moment for Biden, who is eager to demonstrate U.S. leadership on climate change.”

President Joe Biden took to the stump to help Democratic Virginia candidate for governor Terry McAuliffe in his battle against Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin, who has had rallies held for him by Donald Trump and other MAGA adherents–rallies at which Youngkin hasn’t appeared.  “Terry’s opponent has made all of his private pledges of loyalty to Donald Trump, but what’s really interesting to me, he won’t stand next to Donald Trump now that the campaign’s on,” Biden states.  “Think about it:  He won’t allow Donald Trump to campaign for him in this state.  He’s willing to pledge his loyalty to Trump in private.  Why not in public?  What’s he trying to hide?  Is there a problem with Trump being here?  Is he embarrassed?”

“A federal court has ruled that Hearst and @RyanLizza will get to take discovery about who’s putting up the money to finance a lawsuit against them by relatives of Rep. Devin Nunes. ‘These circumstances may not ultimately turn out to be untoward, but they are certainly unusual.'” —Brad Heath of Reuters

CBS News:  “When it comes to expressing gratitude to employees, Spanx founder Sara Blakely could teach Jeff Bezos a thing or two. A day after reaching a deal to sell the underwear maker to a private equity firm, she gave each of her 500 workers first-class plane tickets and $10,000 in spending money.

“Blakely revealed her largess at a party last week to celebrate an October 20 announcement that Blackstone was buying a majority stake in the Atlanta-based maker of slimming briefs, bras, pantyhose and other undergarments. The transaction, which values the company at $1.2 billion, will have Blakely keeping a sizable interest and continuing to run the company with its current management team. She’ll also be executive chairwoman once the deal closes.

“To celebrate, Blakely told her employees they were all getting two first-class plane tickets to anywhere around the world along with $10,000 to cover the cost of accommodations, prompting cheers and some tears in a video posted to social media.”

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: “Rebecca Kleefisch over the weekend told Republicans they needed to ‘hire mercenaries’ and engage in ‘ballot harvesting’ to help her win next year’s race for governor – a practice she has said she wants to ban. In a Saturday speech to Republicans in Door County, Kleefisch said the methods she needs to use to win bother her so much she will need to wash herself with steel wool. If her campaign strategy works, she said she would quickly sign legislation overhauling how elections are conducted. ‘We execute with excellence, we will beat them at their own game. And the next morning, we all wake up, take a shower with steel wool, and then, after swearing in in January… (the Legislature) is going to pass all these bills again, and then I’m going to sign them all. And we will never do elections like that again, but this is how we win,’ Kleefisch said, according to audio of her speech obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.”

“Kleefisch, who served as lieutenant governor for eight years, made her comments as she gears up her campaign to take on Democratic Gov. Tony Evers next year and as Republicans call for tighter voting laws. After a 20-minute speech, Kleefisch told the crowd she would run down her campaign strategy but asked those present not to share it publicly. ‘If you are recording, I don’t want you to put this part online to share with Democrats, OK? It is about election strategy,’ she said.”