The secondary legislation ["implementing act"] for Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is currently under development, as part of which the Commission is preparing an implementing act on the content of the strategic[sic] plans. Through these plans, EU countries will set out how they intend to meet the nine EU-wide objectives of the CAP reform while at the same time responding to the needs of their farmers and rural communities.

Draft plans are to be submitted to the European Commission for approval by the end of the year.

Pointing out that member states hold sway on whether the implementing act passes, the source explained that this opposition indicates that the Commission "does not believe that this implementing act will pass comitology without being massively watered down or scrapped altogether."

The word 'comitology' indicates the maze of internal committees tasked with responsible for assisting the Commission in drafting implementing measures on designing technical aspects of EU legislation, such as delegated acts and secondary legislation.

which has been added to the French dictionary Le Petit Robert. Iel is a combination of two other pronouns il (he) and elle (she). Gender neutral pronouns are used by members of the LGBTQ+ community to refer to transgender individuals or non-binary people.
[...]
Charles Bimbenet, the director of Le Petit Robert, has denied that the introduction of the gender neutral pronoun is a form of inclusive activism. He said the role of the dictionary is to reflect changes in the language and how it was actually used. According to Bimbenet, in recent months the "iel" pronoun has been increasingly more used.

Even though the Green Party pulled its support for her government, it said it is prepared to stand behind Andersson in a new vote to tap a prime minister. But the Greens said it was in the best interests of the party to pull support for her after the budget defeat in parliament.

"We have a united party behind us saying we can not sit in a government that implements a policy (the Sweden Democrats) negotiated. We must look our voters in the eye and feel pride," said Marta Stenevi, Green Party spokesperson as the party chose to resign from the government.

The restrictions will come into force early on Monday, [Chancellor Alexander] Schallenberg said. He added that police will monitor compliance with the restrictive measures and offenders will face punishment.
[...]
The new measure affects around 2 million people out of Austria's 8.9 million population, according to the [Austria Press Agency] APA news agency. The lockdown does not apply to under 12s as they are not eligible to be inoculated against COVID-19 under state law.

"We are afraid that our model in the Nordic countries will disappear," Danish EU lawmaker Marianne Vind told EURACTIV.

The Danish and the Swedish labour markets are almost exclusively organised around collective bargaining. Trade unions and employers negotiate working conditions directly with each other with close to no involvement of the state.

The minimum wage directive as proposed by the European Parliament's employment committee would force member states who have a collective bargaining coverage of less than 80% to draw up national action plans to bring coverage above this level.

The Danish and Swedish politicians remain unconvinced by these safeguards. They fear that the text will allow a future EU Commission or the EU Court of Justice to impose obligations on Denmark and Sweden based on this directive.

"This is really frustrating," said Heidi Rønne of the Danish Trade Union Confederation, who represents them in the European Social and Economic Committee.

Under the new efforts -- tied to separate rules known as the Digital Services Act, which will police content and products more broadly across the internet -- the world's largest social media companies will have to clamp down on political groups' use of these platforms "US-based"
advertising agencies to pinpoint messages to online user based on to segment broadcast audiences sensitive data by demographic traits like gender or sexual orientation[, income, postal code, marital status, employment status, political group affiliation, religion, educational attainment, household size, credit profile, asset (debt) values, TLD origin, national citizenship, "race or ethnicity," purchase preferences, paid ITC subscriptions, &tc.]
[...]
Voters unlikely to see a difference
Digital Markets Act
[...]
New obligations for Big Tech
[...]
Political parties are on the hook, too
[...]
Fight ahead: It's all about the definitions
[...]
What happens in Europe doesn't stay in Europe
[US Cloud Act, archived]

[EC Vice-President Vera Jourova] said people "must know why they are seeing an ad, who paid for it, how much, what micro-targeting criteria were used. New, Old technologies should be tools for emancipation, not for manipulation."
[...]
Information must be available about the basis on which a person, or group of people, is being targeted by the advertisement, and what kind of amplification tools demographic traits like gender or sexual orientation[, income, postal code, marital status, employment status, political group affiliation, religion, educational attainment, household size, credit profile, asset (debt) values, TLD origin, national citizenship, "race or ethnicity," purchase preferences, paid ITC subscriptions, &tc. are being used to help the sponsor advertiser reach a wider audience. Ads would be banned if such criteria cannot be met.

French and other European au pairs wanting to work in the UK must now apply for work visas and earn a minimum of £20,000/year. Au pairs typically earn around £5,000/ year, plus their board and lodging with a British family.

'Sapere aude'

Barbados' Republican status is not a yen for pieces of silver

It should be noted that when Elizabeth II was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in June 1953, she also became Head of State of 67 other countries, then either colonies or dominions of Britain. Over the last 68 years, 52 of those countries opted to become Republics. Barbados will become the 53rd.

....
Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons, Tom Tugendhat, said that:

"British partners have long faced challenges from rivals seeking to undermine our alliance. Today we're seeing it in the Caribbean. Some islands seem to be close to swapping a symbolic Queen in Windsor for a real and demanding emperor in Beijing".

The poll from the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute [?!]

Competing Visions of America: An Evolving Identity or a Culture UNDER ATTACK? Findings from the 2021 American Values Survey
About three in four Americans (74%) agree that America has always been a force for good in the world, including 19% who completely agree with this idea and a majority (55%) who mostly agree.

paints a troubling portrait of a growing segment of the public that is increasingly unmoored from reality as it embraces conspiracy theories about child abduction and stolen elections.
[...]
"I'm not an alarmist by nature, but I'm deeply disturbed by these numbers. I think that we really have to take them seriously as a threat to democracy," said Robert Jones, the founder and chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute [PPRI].

a depressingly routine occurrence on the city's predominantly Black north side that reaffirmed Armstrong's staunch opposition to a proposal on Tuesday's ballot to ["]replace["] the city's police department ... with a new Department of Public Safety

[Medaria ]Arradondo, the city's first Black [police] chief, recently urged voters to reject the proposal after previously saying that ["]an element["] that would give City Council members more oversight of policing would be "wholly unbearable."

A majority of the Supreme Court appeared to be skeptical Monday of Texas' six-week abortion ban, with several justices questioning whether states could use similar laws to restrict gun ownership or the freedom of religion.
[...]
At issue is Texas' unusual enforcement mechanism, which has generated a debate about whether federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have jurisdiction to step in. That has prompted opponents of the law to argue that Democratic-leaning states could use a similar mechanism to shut down other constitutional rights precious to conservatives within their borders.

Associate Justice Brett KAVANAUGH, pointing to a brief from a prominent gun rights group that is supporting the abortion clinics, pressed attorneys for Texas on why other states wouldn't copy its enforcement mechanism to avoid federal court review of such laws. The response: Those affected by the state law could seek help from Congress.
[...]
Chief Justice John ROBERTS also pressed attorneys for Texas on the implications of its law and whether it would undermine constitutional rights accepted by the nation's highest court. What if a state, he asked, permitted citizens to sue anyone selling a gun and allowed them to collect up to $1 million in damages?

But several of the court's conservatives, led by Associate Justice Samuel SCALITO, questioned whether state court officials could be sued. Supreme Court precedent sets a high bar -- impossible to clear, some argue -- for federal courts to block state judges from hearing a case.
[...]
Associate Justice Neil GORSUCH seemed to favor allowing the lawsuits to play out in state court, where abortion clinics could defend the procedure under Supreme Court precedent. Those cases could then ultimately be appealed back to the Supreme Court.

archived Clash of Titans AWKWARD!

Federal contractors can use their discretion in deciding how to handle an employee who refuses to get the COVID-19 vaccine, according to guidance released by the White House on Monday.

+ Vaccine and Safety Protocols NEW!
+ Workplaces
+ Scope and Applicability of Task Force Guidance for Federal Contractors NEW!
+ Compliance NEW!
+ Onsite Contractor Employees and Workplace Safety < recless eyeballin'> Protocols

If a government contractor's employee refuses to get vaccinated and does not have a pending request for an accommodation, there is no one protocol for the employer to follow. The administration suggests counseling and education, followed by additional disciplinary measures, if necessary. Firing an unvaccinated employee should occur only after additional noncompliance, the White House says.

archived EO 14042 "contract-like instruments"

The report, which was published on Tuesday, looked at the State Department's efforts, under the former TRUMP administration, to repatriate more than 100,000 Americans who were stranded abroad during the chaotic first weeks of the pandemic outbreak in March 2020.

The State Department is required by federal law to charge individuals for repatriation costs, with travelers typically signing a "promissory note" [?!] agreeing to pay the cost of the flight at a later time.

The State Department did not require promissory notes  or charge for flights when carrying out its mass evacuation of more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan in August.

Biden's comments on Wednesday drew ire from immigration advocates like ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero, who said Biden might have not been up to speed on the Justice Department's actions as it "carefully deliberated and considered the crimes committed [BY WHOM?] against thousands of families separated from their children as an intentional governmental policy [sic]."

But if he follows through on what he said, the president is abandoning a core campaign promise[?!] to do justice for the thousands of separated families," Romero said. "We respectfully remind President Biden that he called these actions 'criminal' in a debate [BWAH!] with then-President TRUMP, and campaigned on remedying and rectifying the lawlessness of the TRUMP administration. We call on President Biden to right the wrongs of this national tragedy."

🚨🧂UPDATE🧂🚨

The latest SALT cap proposal would cost $300 billion, including $240 billion to those making over $200k per year.

That's still 1.5x as much as spending on the child tax credit and EITC combined!https:/t.co/brFvguwBjP https:/t.co/BQo0PKmHuD pic.twitter.com/OGWSPk1P1J

— Marc Goldwein - GET VAXXED! (@MarcGoldwein) November 3, 2021

Median household income was $67,521 in 2020, a decrease of 2.9 percent from the 2019 median of $69,560 (Figure 1 and Table A-1). This is the first statistically significant decline in median household income since 2011.

Last year HUD discussed considering a change that would replace the CBO forecast with the
economic forecast of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), beginning with the calculation of the FY 2021 Medians. This OMB forecast would have matched the economic assumptions used in the calculation of HUD median family income estimates with assumptions used in the formulation of the [BIDEN] Administration's Budget and with the economic assumptions used in the calculation of Fair Market Rents (FMRs). However, the OMB economic assumptions were not used in the calculation of the FY 2021 FMRs. CBO forecast assumptions were used because they were based on more recent economic data that measured early economic impacts of the pandemic. HUD will still consider using OMB forecasts instead of CBO forecasts next year

The DOJ's lawsuit filed against Texas Secretary of State John Scott in San Antonio federal court argues that provisions of Senate Bill 1 "deny eligible voters meaningful assistance in the voting booth." The federal government says these barriers placed in front of voters violate Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, which allows voters with a disability to receive assistance from a person of their choice.

At least two of these rejected ballot proposals, which deal with voting changes, are heavily backed by Democrats across the country and Democrats outnumber Republicans in New York by more than 2 to 1.

The first ballot proposal would have made changes to the redistricting process.
[...]
The third ballot proposal would have allowed lawmakers to pass a bill so there could be same day voter registration.
[...]
And the fourth ballot proposal would have allowed anyone to request an absentee ballot.

New York has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country, so ballot proposals three and four would have let the state join at least 20 other states that have more expansive voting right laws.

Citing information that he said had been provided to the House Intelligence Committee but not released publicly, Stewart said several intelligence agencies had at least 20% of their workforce unvaccinated as of late October. In some agencies, as many as 40% are unvaccinated, Stewart said. He declined to identify the agencies because full information on vaccination rates was classified.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined several requests to provide figures for the intelligence community. The office also would not say what contingency plans are in place in case officers are taken off work due to not complying with the mandate EO 14943.

On Monday, the Supreme Court justices sounded less convinced that the Justice Department lawsuit against Texas over its abortion law should go forward. Justice Elena Kagan suggested that a ruling instead in favor of the providers would allow the court to avoid difficult issues of federal power.

reference 1 Nov 2021
US v Texass
ORAL ARGUMENTS, audio (EN) 01:27:35
ORAL ARGUMENTS, transcript (EN) 107 pp

incidentally, Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson WHO?
ORAL ARGUMENTS, audio (EN) 01:23:10
ORAL ARGUMENTS, transcript (EN) 101 pp

TMichigan's redistricting commission advanced new maps to a comment period required before a final vote, with some proposing minor tweaks to earlier draft maps and others making major changes such as the restoration of majority-Black districts where the group had previously eliminated them.
[...]
The new maps leave largely unchanged the partisan fairness scores based on election data from the past decade. Some maps drive down the GOP advantage slightly compared with the first set of maps, while other maps saw the party's advantage grow.
[...]
Republicans, including state House Speaker Jason Wentworth, have accused the commission of breaking up communities of interest to achieve partisan fairness. They expressed concerns about districts that split up municipalities and counties, arguing those places are ["]communities of interest["].
[...]
The maps can be viewed at michigan.gov/micrc under "Proposed Maps." The page links to an interactive map with a public comment tool, as well as criteria data that includes information on the racial demographic makeup of the districts and their partisan fairness scores based on compiled election results from the past decade.

What are disappointed survivors supposed to do with "accountability" FKA guilt FKA responsibility discarded by a jury of McGraw's peers? Statement of Karen Bloom & John Huber in Response to the Rittenhouse Verdict

Commenting on COP26 on Tuesday, Thunberg blasted the way that leaders from the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and other nations tackled the issues of the climate crisis. And this time she was even more critical of the world's politicians than during her viral speech at the UN in 2019.

Chair Anna Cavazzini (Greens/EFA, DE) said: ..."All allegations in the `Facebook Files' must be investigated. As the Internal Market Committee is currently negotiating the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, a public hearing with Frances Haugen will enrich the democratic discourse and our current legislative work in the committees concerned".

Beginning a European tour in Britain, the former Facebook manager was questioned by policymakers drafting tougher tech regulations [BWAH!]

Whistleblower Frances Haugen Says Meta Unlikely to Change While Zuckerberg Still CEO, 1 Nov

during an interview at the Web Summit 2021 in Lisbon on Monday that Meta, formerly known as [FKA] Facebook

The EMA's human medicines committee (CHMP & CVMP) has recommended authorising Ronapreve™ [casirivimab/imdevimab] and Regkirona™ [regdanvimab] to treat COVID-19 in adults and adolescents who do not require supplemental oxygen and are at increased risk of the infection becoming severe.

These are the first monoclonal antibody medicines to receive a positive opinion from the CHMP for COVID-19. They will be added to the list of COVID-19 products that have received a positive opinion since Veklury™ (remdesivir) in June 2020.
[...]
The study data for Ronapreve showed that less than 1% of patients treated with Ronapreve were hospitalised or died within 29 days of treatment compared with 3.4% of patients who took a placebo. Another study looked at the benefits of Ronapreve for the prevention of COVID-19 in people who had close contact with an infected household member but did not have COVID-19 symptoms. With Ronapreve, 29% of people tested positive and developed symptoms within 14 days of their positive test results compared with 42% who received a placebo.

The study data for Regkirona showed that among patients at increased risk of their illness becoming severe, 3% of patients treated with Regkirona were hospitalised, required supplemental oxygen or died within 28 days of treatment compared with 11% of patients on a placebo.
[...]
Molnupiravir™ [MK 4482 or Lagevrio™]; Merck[-]Ridgeback's oral COVID-19 antiviral medicine received authorisation in the UK on Thursday (4 November), demonstrating a reduced risk of hospitalisation or death of around 50%.

On Monday (8 November), the EMA announced it was reviewing data on the use of molnupiravir to support national authorities who may decide on using it for COVID-19 treatment before its authorisation.
[...]
EU is negotiating [price?] with Pfizer[-BioNTech]

On Monday (8 November), Reuters reported that The European Union is negotiating with Merck & Co and Pfizer over possible contracts to use their COVID-19 drugs.

Pfizer announced on Friday (5 November) that its ["]novel["] COVID-19 oral antiviral candidate, PAXLOVID™, reduced hospitalisation and death from any cause by 89% compared to placebo in patients treated within three days of symptom onset.

Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut -- both of whom voted against Califf's nomination in 2016 -- have both signaled their opposition once again over concerns about his ties to the drug industry and the FDA's track record on opioids.
[...]
"I have made it abundantly clear that correcting the culture at the FDA is critical to changing the tide of the opioid epidemic," Manchin said in a statement. "Instead, Dr. Califf's nomination and his significant ties to the pharmaceutical industry take us backwards not forward."

Blumenthal separately said he had "very grave reservations about this nomination -- many of the same reservations I expressed when I voted against Dr. Califf's confirmation in 2016."

Another opponent of Califf's first stint as FDA commissioner, Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, also issued a terse statement that highlighted his "serious concerns about the FDA's efforts to curb this public health epidemic" -- though it did not say which way he planned to vote this time around.

Califf could also face increased scrutiny from the Senate's left DNC fossils flank over his more recent role leading health policy at Google parent company Alphabet, as well as his leadership of a Duke University research center that received some funding from the pharmaceutical industry.

brand name: ? per pill

If approved or authorized, PAXLOVID^TM, which originated in Pfizer's laboratories, would be the first oral antiviral of its kind [FALSE], a specifically designed SARS-CoV-2-3CL protease inhibitor.

"Our presence there does not indicate any position on the internal issues of the Solomon Islands," Morrison added.

Biden/Momala 2022 "referendum" story developing ...

"It's kind of like a French move, friends said."