Kyle Rittenhouse Found Not Guilty in Fatal Kenosha Shooting  —  “The defendant will rise to face the jury and hearken to its verdicts.”  “As to the first count of the information, Joseph Rosenbaum, we the jury, find the defendant, Kyle H. Rittenhouse, not guilty.

Biden expected to replace Ron Bloom, USPS board chair and key DeJoy ally, on postal board  —  Bloom, a Democrat, has backed the postmaster general as the agency slowed mail delivery standards and raised prices  —  President Biden is expected to announce Friday that he will not renominate Ron Bloom …

The House battle over Build Back Better — 24 restless hours on the Hill  —  After months of legislating that exposed intraparty riffs, House Democrats began the day Thursday finally feeling confident they could pass their roughly $2 trillion economic and social spending package, sending it on to the Senate.

Fauci's office flooded with attacks over beagle experiments  —  Covid chief's phone line rings 3,600 times in 36 hours after campaign by little-known animal rights group  —  Anthony S. Fauci was swamped by so many angry messages and threats that in late October his assistant quit answering the phone for two weeks.

Wisconsin Republicans Push to Take Over the State's Elections  —  Led by Senator Ron Johnson, G.O.P. officials want to eliminate a bipartisan elections agency — and maybe send its members to jail.  —  Republicans in Wisconsin are engaged in an all-out assault on the state's election infrastructure …

‘No one tells me what to do’: Sinema praises infrastructure, questions spending and inflation in wide-ranging interview  —  Kyrsten Sinema says she is worried about inflation.  The U.S. senator from Arizona says new tax hikes could harm businesses still struggling in the wake of the pandemic.

Statement by President Biden … While the verdict in Kenosha will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included, we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken.  I ran on a promise to bring Americans together, because I believe that what unites us is far greater than what divides us.

For 85 minutes, Kamala Harris became the first woman with presidential power  —  (CNN)President Joe Biden on Friday temporarily transferred power to Vice President Kamala Harris while he was under anesthesia for a routine colonoscopy for one hour and 25 minutes, according to the White House.

Scoop: Surprise Trump book, ‘Our Journey Together’  —  Former President Donald Trump today shocked the publishing world that has tried to cancel his administration by revealing that he is releasing his first post-White House book in December, titled Our Journey Together.

POLITICO Playbook: McCarthy filibusters, Biden dithers and Fauci unmasks  —  DRIVING THE DAY  —  If a “New York minute” is a few passing seconds, then the opposite is a “McCarthy minute” — something that drags on and on for hours.  —  On Thursday night, at 8:38 p.m. …

Peng Shuai: UN calls for proof of Chinese tennis star's whereabouts; WTA chairman willing to pull out of China  —  Hong Kong (CNN)China is facing pressure from the United Nations over Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai's whereabouts as the organization called for an investigation into her allegations of sexual assault.

I Made the World's Blandest Facebook Profile, Just to See What Happens  —  In 2019, a researcher at Facebook conducted an experiment to see whether the platform really has a tendency to send users down a rabbit hole of extreme and conspiratorial content.  The employee set up a pair of fake profiles …

Schools face parents who want to ban critical race theory — and don't get how teaching works  —  An educator's top goal is to teach students to think.  Parents who dictate curricula with their personal opinions, ideologies and biases hinder that goal.  —  CRT outrage & the VA governor's race

‘Typical Bullsh*t’: Fox News Host Melts Down When Mediaite Asks About Fox's Vaccine Policy and Whether Trump Lost in 2020  —  Fox News host Pete Hegseth was my guest on this week's episode of The Interview.  Hegseth is the co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend and a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Trump's ire grows as DeSantis' popularity with Republicans takes off  —  People close to both men first noticed the palpable shift in Trump's posture toward DeSantis earlier this year as enthusiasm for the Florida governor swelled among donors and GOP operatives who praised his laissez-faire response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Slidin' Biden: “Mostly underwater” in Gallup, Cook shifts key Senate Dem seats to toss-ups  —  How low can he go?  For Joe Biden, that question doesn't just apply to overall job approval numbers, or even issue-approval polling.  It also applies to his party and its standing in the midterm elections …

Attempted breach of Ohio county election network draws FBI and state scrutiny  —  Federal and state investigators are examining an attempt to breach an Ohio county's election network that bears striking similarities to an incident in Colorado earlier this year, when government officials helped …

‘Tiger mother’ Amy Chua: ‘Boldness is my downfall’ … Owing to my forgetfulness, my lunch with Amy Chua starts awkwardly before it even begins.  On the train to New Haven, home of Yale University where Chua has been a tenured professor for 20 years, I realise that I forgot to reserve …

Kathy Hochul's Got Seven Months … The governor of New York was sitting in the back of the Apollo Family Restaurant in Buffalo one recent Wednesday afternoon when an older man in a VFW baseball hat approached.  The governor, wearing a light-brown suit and a gold nameplate necklace that read “VAXED,” looked up from her rice pudding.

What is The Cook Political Report?  —  The Cook Political Report is an independent, non-partisan newsletter that analyzes elections and campaigns for the US House of Representatives, US Senate, Governors and President as well as American political trends.