LOUD AND PROUD: UK MP Calls for ‘Very Loud’ Pro-Brexit Voices in U.S. “Architect of EU exit notes Britain can’t start renegotiating trade deal with America ‘until we’ve left… we can’t actually sign’.”

Maybe State is worried that we’d upset Brussels.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Armed Ground Robots Could Join the Ukrainian Conflict Next Year.

Ukrainian military leaders and defense industry officials showed off their experimental Phantom robot on Monday at the Association of the U.S. Army show in Washington, D.C. It has an extendable frame that can be outfitted with treads like a tank or with six wheels, and armed with anti-tank weapons, grenade launchers, or machine guns. Currently in testing, the Phantom could be sent into action against Russian-backed forces as early as next year, they said.

Russia, too, has a wide array of ground bots it could dispatch to the conflict, though Moscow has not signaled its readiness to do that. But Russian drones of the flying variety have been used to tremendous effect there. They identify enemy positions to target fires. They hijack cell-tower signals to deliver false messages and texts, an effect experienced by Ukrainian soldiers and even NATO soldiers outside the country.

There’s video of the Phantom at the link, which doesn’t look much more dangerous than an RC car.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Starving homeless woman eats a CAT in front of shocked crowd as Venezuela’s economic crisis continues.

Think of it as one less predator on Venezuela’s next big food source.

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Trump Tax Cut, Weinstein, Vegas and Much, Much More.

IT HAS FOR A LONG TIME: Kurdistan Deserves U.S. Support. Here Is Why.

Francis Rooney:

Asserting that an independent Kurdistan would impede efforts to defeat radical Islam depreciates the Kurds’ current contributions to that very cause and seems to excessively defer to the Iraqi government. A strong and independent Kurdistan might actually strengthen our efforts by reinforcing the role of the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighting force, as a full-fledged participant in the coalition opposing the Islamic State.

In a similar vein, the Kurds might help reconcile Islam with 21st Century values. Contrary to what we see throughout much of the Middle East, Kurds have promoted a secular brand of Islam in which church is separated from state and many different religions flourish. Drawing Muslims into a tolerant and secular interpretation of the Koran is a critical element in reducing radicalization and Islam-inspired violence. Pope Benedict XVI launched this argument in his well-known address at Regensburg in 2006, where he stressed the need for a modern construction of Islam that can peacefully and tolerantly co-exist with the rest of the world.

Furthermore, an independent Kurdistan would establish another countering force to Iran’s quest for hegemony in the Middle East. An independent Kurdistan securely aligned with the United States would undermine, or at least influence, the Shiite nexus Iran has created among Hezbollah, the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Iraq, and Bashar al-Assad’s Syria.

More than that, even a rump Kurdistan carved out of just northern Iraq (and perhaps also northeastern Syria) would be a thorn in Recep Erdogan’s side and a potentially existential threat to the Mullah’s regime in Iran.

ALLIES: Seoul, Washington to hold strategic dialogue next week.

DRIP, DRIP, DRIP: Project Veritas Releases Second New York Times Video.

TONI AIRAKSINEN: Elite College Students Say America ‘Not Worth Being Proud Of.’

Glenn likes to say we have the worst political class in history — because they’re trained to be.

MICHAEL WALSH: The Barack Obama Presidential Library has everything but a library.

ACADEMIC ANTIFA: Journal Removes Colonialism Article After “Credible Threats of Personal Violence.”

WELL, GOOD: Utah officer fired after nurse’s arrest caught on video.

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT: Texas Dem Introduces Articles of Impeachment, But Doesn’t Force Vote.

HYPOCRISY IS JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR THE CRIMES WE CHOOSE TO COVER UP TOGETHER: Hollywood Actors Who Condemn Trump but Were Silent on Weinstein.

YOU’D BETTER PRAY FOR THIS REGARDLESS: In a Cashless World, You’d Better Pray the Power Never Goes Out.

And remember, you can always pray and prep.

BUT OF COURSE: Dinesh D’Souza Is Being Targeted by the Liberal Media Again.

SINGLE PAYER, SINGLE DECIDER: VA conceals shoddy care and health workers’ mistakes.

Medical experts from the Department of Veterans Affairs blamed one botched surgery after another on a lone podiatrist.

They said Thomas Franchini drilled the wrong screw into the bone of one veteran. He severed a critical tendon in another. He cut into patients who didn’t need surgeries at all. Twice, he failed to properly fuse the ankle of a woman, who chose to have her leg amputated rather than endure the pain.

In 88 cases, the VA concluded, Franchini made mistakes that harmed veterans at the Togus hospital in Maine. The findings reached the highest levels of the agency.

“We found that he was a dangerous surgeon,” former hospital surgery chief Robert Sampson said during a deposition in an ongoing federal lawsuit against the VA.

Agency officials didn’t fire Franchini or report him to a national database that tracks problem doctors.

They let him quietly resign and move on to private practice, then failed for years to disclose his past to his patients and state regulators who licensed him.

He now works as a podiatrist in New York City.

A USA TODAY investigation found the VA — the nation’s largest employer of health care workers — has for years concealed mistakes and misdeeds by staff members entrusted with the care of veterans.

If you can stomach it, read the whole thing.

THE INTERNET OF THINGS: Google’s Home Mini needed a software patch to stop some of them from recording everything.

Smart speakers like the Google Home Mini are designed to only listen for a specific wake word — in this case it’s “Hey Google” or “Ok Google.” Only then do their microphones record what you’re saying it, transmit it to the cloud, and try to answer your question. But there is usually a way to just hit a button and ask the embedded assistant a question. On the Mini, it’s holding your finger down on the top of it.

That seems to be the rub (pardon the pun) with Russakovskii’s Mini: it thought that somebody was holding its finger down on the top and so was randomly activating and recording. The good news is that the lights turned on to indicate it was listening, but the bad news is that it didn’t make an audible tone, so it took a trip through the Home’s search history to discover the error.

To Google’s credit, it seems to have scrambled the engineering jets to figure out the issue and create a fix. The fix, though, is removing a feature from the Mini. Google has altered the software so a simple touch won’t activate the Assistant, you have to say the wake word instead.

Putting one of these things in your home requires an awful lot of trust in Google or Amazon.

BACKDOOR MAN: Deputy AG Calls for Court-Approved Access to Encrypted Devices.

MICHELLE MALKIN: Obama Lied. My FOURTH Health Plan Died.

Two weeks ago, my husband and I received yet another cancellation notice for our private, individual health insurance coverage. It’s our fourth Obamacare-induced obituary in four years. Our first death notice, from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, arrived in the fall of 2013. The insurer informed us that because of “changes from health care reform (also called the Affordable Care Act or ACA),” our plan no longer met the federal government’s requirements.

Never mind our needs and desires as consumers who were quite satisfied with a high-deductible PPO that included a wide network of doctors for ourselves and our two children.

Read the whole thing.

HMM: A Full-Blooded Separatist Retreat in Catalonia.

After rowdy demonstrations, a covert referendum (which drew a violent response from Spanish police) and vows to set up a new republic, Catalan President Carles Puigdemont blinked.

Many lawmakers gathered for a special session of the regional legislature were hoping to hear a declaration of independence. Instead, he put the process on hold to make another appeal for talks with the Spanish government. No deadline. No leverage. And Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s response was powerful: he started the process that could see Puigdemont’s administration stripped of its powers.

Already last night cracks were opening up in the separatist coalition, suggesting a regional election may be necessary next year.

That line about stripping the Puigdemont administration of its powers is more fully explained in this report:

Mariano Rajoy said he had asked Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont to confirm whether or not he has declared independence.

The move is a first step towards activating Article 155 to suspend Catalonia’s autonomy.

On Tuesday Mr Puigdemont signed a declaration of independence, but halted implementation to allow negotiations.

Mr Rajoy accused Mr Puigdemont of creating “deliberate confusion” and said he wanted to restore “certainty”.

“This call – ahead of any of the measures that the government may adopt under Article 155 of our constitution – seeks to offer citizens the clarity and security that a question of such importance requires,” Mr Rajoy said.

The BBC goes on to report that “Article 155 has never been used before and there are disagreements about how it would work in practise,” but it has been described elsewhere as the “nuclear option” for stripping Spain’s constitutionally powerful regions of their autonomy.

THIS WILL NOT PLAY OUT WELL FOR THEM: Pledge to Impeach Trump, a Key Donor Demands of Democrats.

Tom Steyer, a billionaire California investor who spent more than $91 million supporting Democrats in the 2016 elections, issued the demand to his party in a letter on Wednesday. In his message, Mr. Steyer described Mr. Trump as a “clear and present danger to the republic” and called on Democrats to pledge that they would seek to remove him from office if they take control of Congress next year.

Mr. Steyer — who is considering a run for Senate, perhaps against Senator Dianne Feinstein, a fellow Democrat — cited a range of acts by Mr. Trump to justify impeachment, including the president’s “relationship with Vladimir Putin and Russia,” allegations that Mr. Trump has used the presidency to “promote his own business interests” and his “seeming determination to go to war.”

Democrats helped cover for Harvey Weinstein for years, and he doesn’t have anything like Steyer’s money.

FUNGIBLE: Tim Kaine Says Harvey Weinstein’s Donations to Him Have Already Been Spent.

CHEATERS: OPEC Oil Production Rose in September Despite Deal to Limit Output.

Output by members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries rose by 0.27%, to 32.75 million barrels a day in September, compared with the month prior. The increase was driven by higher production in Libya, Nigeria, Iraq and Gabon, according to OPEC’s closely watched monthly oil market report.

OPEC and other major crude producers like Russia agreed nearly a year ago to cap production at around 1.8 million barrels a day below peak October 2016 levels, with the aim of alleviating oversupply and boosting prices. But the deal has been undermined in part by a surge in production in Libya and Nigeria, the two member countries not included in the deal because their oil industries had been damaged by civil unrest.

The news came a day after Saudi Arabia—OPEC’s largest member—said it would export 7% less crude by sea in November, compared with the same period last year. The move appeared to reassure investors of the cartel’s commitment to draining global oil stocks, giving prices a bounce in trading Tuesday. Brent crude, the global benchmark, closed up 1.5%, at $56.61 a barrel.

Saudi Arabia has indicated repeatedly in recent weeks that it is open to an extension of the production cut agreement, which expires in March, potentially through the end of 2018.

Even a small uptick in prices encourages the more-desperate OPEC members like Libya more reason to cheat — and brings more US shale production back online, too.

SHAMEFUL: How NBC ‘Killed’ Ronan Farrow’s Weinstein Exposé.

Addressing a controversy that has been percolating for the past several days in the media ecosystem since The New York Times published its own Weinstein exposé—including questions about whether NBC executives caved to the well-connected Weinstein and his formidable lawyers, Charles Harder, Lisa Bloom, and David Boies—Maddow brought it to a boiling point by telling Farrow: “NBC says that the story wasn’t publishable, that it wasn’t ready to go at the time that you brought it to them.”

Farrow fired back: “I walked into the door at The New Yorker with an explosively reportable piece that should have been public earlier. And immediately, obviously, The New Yorker recognized that. And it is not accurate to say that it was not reportable. In fact, there were multiple determinations that it was reportable at NBC.”

Farrow’s blunt claim highlighted an uncomfortable debate among NBC News insiders, and beyond, concerning the quality and status of his investigative reporting and the reasons why a respected television network would kill a sensational scoop about a famous, influential, politically wired, and undeniably newsworthy figure like Harvey Weinstein.

Rumors about the iconic producer’s alleged misconduct with women have fueled journalistic curiosity for decades. But the 65-year-old Weinstein somehow managed to keep his alleged misdeeds from public exposure—until now.

“Somehow.”

STEPHEN KRUISER: Hollywood Isn’t Going to Deal With Weinstein, It’s Going to Erase Him.

Everybody knows you never go full Polanski.