LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Latin America in Fresh Crisis Talks as Millions Flee Venezuela. “Ecuador’s government said it would extend until Nov. 30 a ‘humanitarian emergency’ in the most affected areas, including regions on the Colombian and Peruvian borders, and the capital Quito. Ecuador expelled Venezuela’s ambassador this month, after Venezuela accused Quito of lying about the extent of migration. The two countries were close allies until relations broke down this year.”

Weird how no one ever tries breaking into a workers’ paradise.

UGH: Paramedic hurt patient on purpose, then bragged about it on Facebook, state says.

About the best thing I can say about social media is that it has encouraged an allowed an awful lot of antisocial types to self-reveal.

HAIL, BRITANNIA: UK MoD gets budget boost of more than $1B with three programs in mind. “Cyber, anti-submarine warfare and the Dreadnought nuclear submarine build program all got named as destinations for the extra cash.”

It’s not enough, but it’s a start.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Thanks Obama: The 5 Prisoners Freed From Gitmo In Exchange For Bergdahl Join Insurgency In Qatar.

“The Taliban are bringing back their old generation, which means the Taliban have not changed their thinking or their leadership,” said Mir, according to the Military Times. “What we are more worried about is if tomorrow the Taliban say ‘we are ready to negotiate,’ who will represent Kabul? That is the big challenge because the government is so divided, not just ideologically but on ethnic lines.”

These men include, according to the Military Times, Mohammed Fazl, who oversaw the deaths of thousands of minority Shiites in 2000. It also includes Abdul Haq Wasiq, who was described as “the most significant Taliban leader held at Guantanamo Bay because of his particularly close relationship with Mullah Omar.”

Interrogation followed by execution is the only proper way to deal with foreign terrorists, who are afforded no POW protections under the Geneva Conventions.

TYLER O’NEIL: 5 Things to Know About the 14th Amendment and Trump’s Plan to End Birthright Citizenship.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 10 Freaky Underrated B Horror Films to Watch This Halloween.

There are some fine, obscure picks on this list, but for low-budget thrills nothing beats Re-Animator.

I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING: Woman who had sex with 20 ghosts is now engaged to a spirit.

PATRICK POOLE: Suspicious Deaths of Saudi Sisters Seeking Asylum in U.S. Under Investigation. “Their bodies were discovered fully clothed and duct-taped together at the feet and waist last Wednesday on the banks of the Hudson River.”

NOT ONLY IS FLORIDA STRANGER THAN WE IMAGINE, IT IS STRANGER THAN WE CAN IMAGINE: ‘MAGA Bomber’ Worked at West Palm Nightclub Where Stormy Daniels Stripped in Anti-Trump Tour.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Ready to Get Off Facebook? Reason Reviews 5 Alternative Social Networks.

Minds and Vero both look pretty good. I like MeWe’s privacy features, but it needs more focus on what kind of social network it wants to be.

SELF-DEFENSE: Dad at McDonald’s with kids shoots and kills masked gunman who opened fire.

Birmingham Police responded to the McDonald’s at around 10:45 p.m. Sunday after receiving reports that multiple people had been shot. When an employee opened the door to let a father and his two sons out of the restaurant, a masked man entered. The man then began shooting. Investigators say it is not clear whether he intended to rob the McDonald’s or was targeting someone inside.

The father then opened fire on the gunman, fatally wounding him. The unidentified dad and one of his kids, a minor, were also struck, but do not have life-threatening injuries.

The investigation is still ongoing, but based on the preliminary information, the father won’t face any charges, the station reports.

I hope management at that McDonald’s passes around the hat for their local hero.

THE NEW CIVILITY: Tom Steyer Runs Facebook Ad Comparing President Trump To Saddam Hussein.

IT’S A LOT LIKE WEB 1.0: What The Heck Is Web 3.0 Anyway?

Many people don’t realise that the internet was never meant to be controlled by a few central authorities managing the traffic and data. Tim Berners-Lee and Web 1.0’s original architects imagined a distributed system of computers communicating with each other directly, with each user owning a bit of responsibility for maintaining their contribution to the network.

Today’s Web 2.0 has cast off these original ideals and relies on large corporations to store and distribute information. Over time, these giants have amassed huge stores of data on each and every one of us, down to the individual level. This is information that can predict our probability to purchase an item or take an action – like voting for one political candidate over another. But this data also suggests ways we can be manipulated to take actions that might go against our better judgement (ever had a product you want but don’t really need follow you around the web for a few weeks?). These concentrated forces have turned the user into the product to drive revenue by either selling our data or offering advertising that is micro-targeted to influence our thoughts and decisions.

A new wave of networking technologies, also known as Web 3.0, promises to return the internet to the hands of users.

Faster, please.

ELECTIONEERING: DNC Chairman to Latinos: Trump ‘Wants Every Voter to Be Afraid.’ “Trump campaign says it’s targeting ‘huge batch of independent voters, suburban mothers, people out there that might not be watching the news every day’.”

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Lester Holt Dressed up as a Woman in ‘Whiteface,’ Fallon In Blackface, What Exactly is NBC’s Policy?

EMILY ZANOTTI: Women’s March Holds ‘Vigil’ To Oppose Anti-Semitism — Led By Linda Sarsour. “At least three of the Women’s March leaders embrace anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan, and they aren’t apologizing for it.”

Sarsour and fellow Women’s March leaders Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez are, of course, friends with arguably the nation’s foremost anti-Semite, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who regularly delivers anti-Jewish messages from the pulpit of his mosque in Chicago, and just last week referred to Jews as “termites” who require extermination.

The Women’s March, of course, hasn’t denounced Farrakhan, nor has it forced its own leaders, who led a march against anti-Semitism yesterday, to denounce Farrakhan and distance themselves from his rhetoric.

Actually, it’s just the opposite. The best the March could offer was a tepid statement of values: “Minister Farrakhan’s statements about Jewish, queer, and trans people are not aligned with the Women’s March Unity Principles.”

Also: 6 Liberal Democrats Photographed With Anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan.

CHANGE: Florida to Gain 1.4 Million Voters if Felon Measure Passes. “The initiative to allow former prisoners to vote stands a chance of passing, and activists are already encouraging this group to cast ballots.”

OUCH: Whirlpool asks bankrupt-Sears for inventory back.

Whirlpool – which makes washing machines, refrigerators and dish washers, among other appliances – sent a letter to Sears last week asking that the retailer return items it had received from Whirlpool in the 45 days leading up to its Oct. 15 bankruptcy filing, according to The New York Post.

Whirlpool said that Sears has no right to the products since the company was insolvent when it ordered them, requesting the retailer refrain from selling or disposing of them.

Related: Sears bankruptcy puts Kenmore lifetime warranty in question.

Ten years ago my wife and I purchased a Kenmore Elite dishwasher which we’ve been very happy with, but are now left wondering if replacement parts are going to become an issue.

SPENGLER: The Revolutionary Conservatism of the Jews.

I HAD BEEN ASSURED THAT VOTER FRAUD WAS A MYTH: Former Dem Leader in Texas Implicated in Organized Voter Fraud Ring, AG Says. “Stuart Clegg, the former executive director for the Tarrant County Democratic Party, allegedly funded an illegal vote harvesting scheme.”

THE APP ECONOMY: Travelers Cash In Using International Delivery Apps, Often By Skirting Customs Duties.

San Francisco-based Grabr—which says it has more than 500,000 world-wide registered users—offers a web platform allowing shoppers to request international deliveries. The company, backed by big-name investors including Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, is popular in markets such as Brazil and Argentina, where foreign goods purchased locally are expensive.

Many goods are a vastly better deal for Grabr shoppers if their traveling partners don’t incur any duties on arrival.

The Wall Street Journal interviewed more than a dozen Grabr travelers, almost all of whom said they tried to bring expensive items through customs without paying duties.

“I would take the items out of the boxes to make them look used,” said former deliverer Evelyn Slater-Shew, 27 years old, of Long Beach, Calif., on how she would avoid customs when transporting goods.

Ms. Slater-Shew said she delivered items selected by Grabr staffers who appeared to know “what we were doing” and advised her to “make everything look used or old.”

Sneaky.

REPRODUCTION: Same-sex couple carries same ‘miracle’ baby in what may be fertility world first.

It starts like traditional IVF.

“Bliss went through the stimulation of her ovaries and the egg harvest,” Kathy said.

Instead of placing the sperm and Bliss’ eggs into incubators in a lab, which is called reciprocal IVF and has been carried out for same-sex couples for years, they go into the chamber of the INVOcell device immediately after egg retrieval. The device is placed into Bliss’ body for five days where early embryo development begins.

“She got the embryo off to an early start,” Kathy said. “The eggs fertilized in her body and when they returned five days later, we removed the device and froze the embryos.”

Because embryos don’t have livers, kidneys or lungs, traditionally, electromechanical devices like incubators are used in labs to remove toxins and try to maintain a supportive environment for the embryo.

“It turns out, not surprisingly, that the woman’s own body is a very good incubator,” Kathy said, clarifying how INVOcell works. “We have livers, kidneys and lungs so we’re able to provide those same services to the embryo more naturally.”

Next, it was Ashleigh’s turn.

“Almost like passing the baton, like it’s a relay race,” Kathy said.

Doctors evaluated Ashleigh’s uterus, gave her estrogen and then progesterone, waited for the right time and transferred her wife’s embryos to her body. They got pregnant on the first try.

Really, most anything to combat the radical decline in fertility.

THE FIRST THING WE DO, LET’S BILL ALL THE LAWYERS: Supreme Court tackles class action settlement that left nothing for millions of online customers.

What happens when there are 129 million winners in a class action lawsuit, each of whom stands to receive 4 cents?

Federal judges in California thought they had an answer. Faced with a privacy invasion lawsuit first filed against Google in 2010, they approved an $8.5 million settlement that split most of the proceeds among six universities and nonprofit groups researching internet privacy issues.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers got more than $2 million.

Google users got nothing.

Enter Ted Frank, who directs the Center for Class Action Fairness at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market advocacy group. He objected to the settlement, as he has to numerous others. This time, he made it to the Supreme Court.

Frank’s beef is simple: The deal approved by federal district and circuit court judges benefited the lawyers and recipients, including programs at universities the lawyers attended. Google was not required to change its search function practices despite the privacy intrusion. And the 129 million-member class remained largely clueless.

What a waste of everyone’s time — except for the attorneys’.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Everyone Else Needs to Tone Down Their Rhetoric and Much, Much More. “So I am supposed to believe that calling Trump supporters Nazis, white supremacists, sexists, homophobes is just the right thing to do but Trump’s rhetoric is pouring gasoline on a burning fire of crazy activists? Or perhaps violence in the name of the leftist agenda is just fine? I think that’s it.”

HMM: Report: Israel sold $250m. of sophisticated spy systems to Saudi Arabia.

Some of the spy systems, which are the most sophisticated systems Israel has ever sold to any Arab country, have already been transferred to Saudi Arabia and put into use after a Saudi technical team received training in operating them, the report added.

The exclusive report also revealed that the two countries exchanged strategic military information in the meetings, which were conducted in Washington and London through a European mediator.

Such cooperation would not be the first of its kind between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The Israeli-Sunni Arab alliance is unwritten, but it is increasingly real.