memeorandum: Russia recruiting U.S.-trained Afghan commandos, vets say (Bernard Condon/Associated Press)

5:35 PM ET, October 31, 2022

Top Items:

Musk's inner circle worked through weekend to cement Twitter layoff plans — The first round of layoffs, led by his lawyer Alex Spiro, will target 25 percent of the workforce — SAN FRANCISCO — Members of billionaire Elon Musk's inner circle huddled with Twitter's remaining senior executives throughout …

Siva Vaidhyanathan / The Guardian:

Like Trump, Elon Musk reveals a vapid mind super-charged by wealth and ego — Musk, despite his wealth, good fortune and global influence, is not a serious person - but he is toying with dangerous ideas — t took less than 48 hours for Elon Musk to reveal just how dangerous his new toy can be to this world.

Discussion: Media Matters for America, NBC News, Mediaite, The Hill, DNyuz, Quartz, The Hill and Al Jazeera, more at Mediagazer »

Alex Heath / The Verge:

Twitter is planning to start charging $20 per month for verification … Now that he owns Twitter, Elon Musk has given employees their first ultimatum: Meet his deadline to introduce paid verification on Twitter or pack up and leave. — The directive is to change Twitter Blue …

Michael Tomasky / New Republic:
Paul Pelosi Almost Died, and Most Republicans Don't Have a Big Problem With That

Discussion: TheBlaze, Newsweek, The Daily Dot, Boing Boing, HuffPost, The Wrap, Fox News and Newsbusters

Washington Post:
Feds charge alleged Pelosi attacker with attempted kidnapping

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Examiner, Bloomberg, CNN, NBC News and Political Wire

Politico:
POLITICO Playbook: The next big precedent SCOTUS is set to overturn

Discussion: WHTM-TV and American Errata

New York Times:

Senate Control Hinges on Neck-and-Neck Races, Times/Siena Poll Finds — The contests are close in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Many voters want Republicans to flip the Senate, but prefer the Democrat in their state. — Control of the Senate rests on a knife's edge …

Discussion: National Review, Right Wing Watch, CNBC, Raw Story, DNyuz, New York Post, Washington Times, PoliticusUSA, WHTM-TV, Bloomberg, Outside the Beltway, The Forward and Politico

Greg Bluestein / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Final AJC midterm poll: Kemp leads Abrams, deadlocked Senate race — Gov. Brian Kemp maintains a solid lead over Democrat Stacey Abrams in the latest Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll, while the race between U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker remains a neck-and-neck contest that could be headed toward a runoff.

Discussion: Sabato's Crystal Ball, The Hill, Mediaite, Breitbart, New York Magazine, FiveThirtyEight, Washington Examiner and Political Wire

Greg Bluestein / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
In final debate, Kemp won't say whether he'd sign new abortion limits

Discussion: HotAir, Washington Times, Fox News, HuffPost, The Daily Caller, The Guardian, IJR, InsiderAdvantageGeorgia, Albuquerque Journal, DNyuz and Political Wire

Nate Cohn / New York Times:
Times/Siena Polls Show Democrats Slightly Ahead in Key Senate Races

Discussion: Just The News, DNyuz and Raw Story

Tabitha Mueller / The Nevada Independent:
Poll: Sisolak, Cortez Masto narrowly lead GOP opponents in days ahead of election

Discussion: The Hill and Political Wire

Andrew Griffin / The Independent:

Elon Musk dissolves Twitter's board and makes himself ‘sole director’ — Board had previously been made up of nine directors, including ousted chief executive Parag Agrawal — Twitter To Start Charging $20 a Month for Verification … Elon Musk has dissolved Twitter's board and made himself the “sole director” of the company.

Discussion: The Hill, Bloomberg, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, TechCrunch, The Wrap, The Post Millennial and NDTV, more at Techmeme »

The Intercept:

Leaked Documents Outline DHS's Plans to Police Disinformation — The Department of Homeland Security is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous, an investigation by The Intercept has found. Years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents …

Discussion: HotAir, The Post Millennial, Reason, Newsbusters, Carrie's Gazebo, Clandestine's Newsletter, Washington Examiner, Twitchy, The Daily Caller, Ace of Spades HQ and Steve Bannon's War Room, more at Techmeme »

Adam Wren / Politico:

Prominent conservatives share online disinformation about Paul Pelosi assault — Even as Republican leaders condemn the brutal assault on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, other GOP figures are broadcasting a much different message on social media — at turns downplaying, mocking and trading in disinformation about the attack.

Discussion: Insider, The Daily Beast, HuffPost, The Hill, RedState, The Daily Caller, Gizmodo, Yahoo News, Mediaite, Rolling Stone, The Gateway Pundit, Twitchy, NBC News and The Economist

Matt Gertz / Media Matters for America:
The right-wing ecosystem that created the Paul Pelosi conspiracy theory

Discussion: Washington Post, Al Jazeera, Mother Jones, The Daily Caller, Raw Story, Jezebel, PinkNews and CBS News

Brett Samuels / The Hill:
Trump: Attack on Paul Pelosi a ‘terrible thing’

Discussion: Fox News, Forbes, Mediaite, CNN, Raw Story, The Daily Caller, CD Media, New York Post, Washington Examiner, Insider, Lucianne, FOX8 WGHP and BizPac Review

U.S. Department of Justice:

Man Charged with Assault and Attempted Kidnapping Following Breaking and Entering of Pelosi Residence — A California man was charged today with assault and attempted kidnapping in violation of federal law in connection with the break-in at the residence of Nancy and Paul Pelosi in San Francisco on Friday.

Discussion: NPR, Semafor, Washington Examiner, CNBC, The Hill, RedState, UPI, Mercury News, FOX8 WGHP, National Review, KARK-TV, The Daily Caller, Rolling Stone, Washington Times, The Gateway Pundit, Forbes, NewsNation, The Guardian and CBS News

NBC News:

Biden lost temper with Zelenskyy in June phone call when Ukrainian leader asked for more aid — It's become routine since Russia invaded Ukraine: President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speak by phone whenever the U.S. announces a new package of military assistance for Kyiv.

Discussion: HotAir, Politico, The National Interest, The Daily Caller, DNyuz, National Review, New York Post, The Western Journal, Insider, Breitbart, Mediaite, Washington Examiner and IJR

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

GOP bracing for Trump indictment soon after Election Day — Republican aides and strategists privately expect Attorney General Merrick Garland to pursue an indictment of former President Trump within 60 to 90 days after Election Day, predicting the window for prosecuting Trump will close once …

Discussion: Washington Examiner, The Torch Report and Raw Story

David M. Drucker / Washington Examiner:
GOP 2024 primary set to begin with conference featuring several contenders, but not Trump

Discussion: Raw Story and CNN

Axios:

Scoop: Musk team working to reboot Vine this year — Elon Musk has instructed Twitter engineers to work on a Vine reboot that could be ready by year end, multiple sources tell Axios. … - Twitter reportedly tried to sell Vine shortly after. … - One source says “it needs a lot of work.”

Discussion: The Verge, The Wrap, DNyuz, The Western Journal, Hollywood Unlocked, TechCrunch, Washington Examiner, Consequence, Mashable and Bloomberg, more at Mediagazer »

Max Tani / Semafor:

ProPublica scrambles to check translation in COVID origin story — In the days after ProPublica published a searing expose based on a close reading of Communist Party memoranda in Mandarin, it called in at least two translators, according to three people familiar with the exchanges.

Discussion: DNyuz, more at Mediagazer »

Mike Allen / Axios:

First look: Mike Pence's new book reveals key moment before Jan. 6 — In former Vice President Mike Pence's “So Help Me God” — out Nov. 15 — he describes a scene in November 2020, just after the election, when he and former President Trump met in the Oval Office to review legal challenges with the campaign's lawyers.

Discussion: USA Today, The Guardian, Mediaite, Raw Story, HuffPost, Washington Examiner and The Hill

Nora Mishanec / San Francisco Chronicle:

Ex-girlfriend of suspect in Paul Pelosi attack says he struggled with mental illness, drugs, believed he was ‘Jesus for a year’ — The imprisoned longtime partner of David DePape, the suspect in the attack on U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul, said Sunday that mental illness …

Discussion: HotAir, The Daily Caller, National Review, The Post Millennial, Twitchy, Commentary Magazine, The Federalist, CBS News, Political Wire and Kurt Nimmo on Geopolitics

NBC News:

Oath Keeper who stormed the Capitol says he thought Jan. 6 was a ‘Bastille-type’ attack — WASHINGTON — A member of the Oath Keepers convicted in connection with Jan. 6 wanted to be a part of the attack on the Capitol because he thought it was similar to the 1789 storming of the Bastille …

Discussion: Associated Press, Politico, Law & Crime and Raw Story

NBC News:
Capitol Officer Harry Dunn testifies Oath Keepers weren't helping him on Jan. 6

Discussion: Politico, USA Today and Law & Crime

Ben Mathis-Lilley / Slate:

I Watched J.D. Vance Try to Charm Voters in Ohio. I Finally Get Why He's So Angry. — I watched the Hillbilly Elegy author campaign in Ohio. It has not gone according to plan. — A t — a pancake breakfast in the southwest Ohio city of Loveland in late September, I waited through 90 minutes of speeches for J.D. Vance.

Discussion: Breitbart, New Statesman and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Danny Hakim / New York Times:
Company Backed by J.D. Vance Gives Platform for Russian Propaganda

Discussion: Media Matters for America

Tierney Sneed / CNN:

Trump asks Supreme Court to stop IRS from turning over his tax returns to the House — Former President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to put on hold the release of his tax returns by the Internal Revenue Service to a Democratic-led House committee.

Discussion: Insider, CNBC, Washington Post, NBC News, The Hill, Associated Press, ABC News, UPI, SCOTUSblog, Washington Examiner, Law & Crime, Raw Story, Fox News, New York Times, New York Post, Metro.co.uk, Reuters, Washington Times, PoliticusUSA, Axios, Just The News and DNyuz

Associated Press:

AP source: Biden to float windfall tax on energy producers — President Joe Biden on Monday will raise the possibility of imposing a ‘windfall tax’ on energy companies, as his administration aims to combat high gas prices just days before the midterm elections.

Discussion: The Hill, Bloomberg, CNN, Associated Press, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, The Daily Caller, E&E, New York Post, One America News Network, Washington Post and Fox Business

Bernard Condon / Associated Press:

Russia recruiting U.S.-trained Afghan commandos, vets say — Afghan special forces soldiers who fought alongside American troops and then fled to Iran after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal last year are now being recruited by the Russian military to fight in Ukraine, three former Afghan generals told The Associated Press.

Discussion: The Daily Caller and The Afghan Digest

Jennifer Rubin / Washington Post:

Republicans have made violence part of their brand — Political violence is not an unintended consequence of the MAGA movement. Much like Nike's swoosh, it is at the center of the movement's brand. — Remember this when considering the intruder who, hyped up on the conspiracy theories Republicans bandy …

Discussion: New York Times, Power Line and Raw Story

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling / The Daily Beast:

‘Lady of the Dunes’: Handless Body Identified 48 Years After Cape Cod Slaying — An unidentifiable corpse was found in the sand dunes outside Provincetown on July 26, 1974. Detectives were able to say her name for the first time on Monday. — Breaking News Intern