“Liberals are the new racists,” according to an unintentionally comical political ad that aired during the World Series this week.

The ad plays out of context clips of three women of color (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Rep. Ilhan Omar D-Minn.; and “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin) speaking about race, cut together with a horror movie aesthetic. Then comes the ad’s real message: “Today’s liberals are full of hate. They hate America. They’re obsessed with skin color,” says an unnamed female narrator obscured by shadow. “I can’t even show my face, because my skin is white and they’ll spew hate at me,” she laments.

Days before the midterm elections that will serve as a referendum on the job performance of America’s most abjectly racist president in a century, I couldn’t help but wonder who ponied up the reported $550,000 it costs to air a 30-second spot during this year’s Fall Classic.

If “liberals are the new racists,” according to America Next, who are the old racists? Maybe it’s the people at the highest positions of power and influence in the Grand Old Party and the MAGA movement?

New York Times reporter Ken Bensinger posted to X that the ad was paid for by America Next, a PAC created by former Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. According to its website, America Next is “not focused on elections” but rather “winning the war of ideas.” Bensinger also cited Federal Elections Commission data showing America Next paid $250,000 to a firm called Breakthrough LLC for the specific purpose of “opposition” to the Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed. The Guardian reported that Breakthrough was founded by former Jindal aide Timmy Teepell, whose son Tommy went viral after asking El-Sayed if he’d denounce the Muslim Brotherhood at a campaign event earlier in October. (Neither of the Teepells, nor America Next responded to The Guardian’s request for comment.)

It’s particularly ironic for Jindal, the son of immigrants from India, to bankroll an ad accusing the left of being “racist” and “obsessed with skin color.” It has, after all, only been a month since MAGA’s recent heated debate over whether Indian Americans can ever be “real Americans,” which was sparked by a Republican candidate’s outrage at a photo of nonwhite University of Texas football fans.

And the irony is further enhanced by the fact that among the defining features of the second Trump administration — which also include unprecedented levels of corruption, illegal foreign incursions and killings without due process, repeated violations of Americans’ constitutional rights and a vast censorship industrial complex — is the complete normalization of the kind of gutter racism that, prior to President Donald Trump’s political rise, had been pushed toward the fringes of society.

On Wednesday, the Trump War Room X account (the Trump White House’s more overtly political account) quote-posted an official White House account post warning, “The chaos, looting, and destruction we’re watching [in France] is exactly the future radical Democrats are pushing for America.” To drive home its point, the War Room account posted a photo of Trump with the caption, “Which way Western Man?”

For the uninitiated, “Which Way, Western Man?” is the title of a book published in 1978 that has become a foundational text for the neo-Nazi movement. It praises Adolf Hitler, advocates for violence against Jews and Blacks; quotes liberally from the antisemitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion;” and likens birth control to “the knife by which [the] civilized White man is cutting his own throat.” (That line, in particular, is evocative of a post Charlie Kirk wrote the day before his assassination: “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.”)

It must be said that this is hardly the first time the Trump administration has embraced Nazi sloganeering in its political outreach. The Department of Homeland Security has already put many “Which way Western Man” posts on the internet. It even used the white supremacist marching song “By God We’ll Have Our Home Again” on its social media accounts back in January.

But if “liberals are the new racists,” according to America Next, who are the old racists? Maybe it’s the people at the highest positions of power and influence in the Grand Old Party and the MAGA movement?

For the uninitiated, “Which Way, Western Man?” is the title of a book published in 1978 that has become a foundational text for the neo-Nazi movement. It praises Adolf Hitler, advocates for violence against Jews and Blacks and quotes liberally from the antisemitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

At a GOP get-out-the-vote rally in Michigan on Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — noted anti-vax maniac and serial fabulist — went on a fact-bereft and racist rant seemingly directed at El-Sayed, saying, “There are five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don’t produce science … They don’t win the Nobel Prize. They don’t win the Fields Medal. They don’t win the Wolf Prize.”

Two days later the Libs of TikTok X account — which is so influential on the White House that Reuters noted its “symbiosis” with the administration has “has triggered harassment and threats” — posted a photo of four Black high school students with the caption: “St. Cloud Area Schools in MN announces students chosen for an award. What do you notice?” As vile as it is for Libs of TikTok to draw children into its culture war obsessions, the obvious implication is that the Black students are undeserving. There’s a word for that.

And, of course, Trump in recent weeks has filled his campaign rallies with rank racism. Whether it’s repeatedly calling Somalis “low IQ” or referring to El-Sayed as “Abduladadalalalala” or using an antisemitic slur to defend Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall — Trump is very comfortable in his own skin as an old-school bigot.

While trying to frame anyone but themselves as racist, Trump and his MAGA allies dig ever deeper into the swamps of prejudice, then laugh about it. On Thursday, the White House posted an image of a pumpkin with a sombrero carved into it, and a caption reading, “Spooky szn is here.”

It’s an obvious troll meant to signal that Mexicans are scary, with the added goofy internet meme lingo deployed to soften the delivery. But fear and hatred of the other is the message — and normalizing racism is the point.

The post A right-wing ad says ‘liberals are the new racists.’ What does that make the GOP? appeared first on MS NOW.

When former President Barack Obama said on the campaign trail last week that President Trump had redesigned the White House to look “like Sadaam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” he obviously hit a nerve. Trump and his aggrieved supporters have spent the time since deliberately distorting what Obama said to suggest that he was attacking the restaurant and the people who eat there and not Trump himself.

MAGA is notoriously sensitive about food culture and understand its power. A few years ago, those conservatives freaked out over Cracker Barrel’s attempt to streamline its logo, interpreting it as the restaurant’s effort to distance itself from its white southern association. And Donald Trump pretended to prepare fries at a McDonald’s franchise to cast doubt on Vice President Kamala Harris’ claim that she worked there after her first year in college.

Politicians have always used food to project a relatable image — like you can trust me because I eat just like you; we belong to the same culinary tribe.

As for The Cheesecake Factory, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, net worth $600 million, spoke to reporters after eating at a Washington location Monday and dared Obama — or as he put it “the Martha’s Vineyard set” — to try it. At least one MAGA commentator appears to have made up a story about eating at The Cheesecake Factory in his childhood — before a franchise opened where he lived — and another conservative commentator used artificial intelligence, according to a label on his X post, to pretend he was eating there.

To be clear, this fight is about more than the recently gilded cherubs in the Oval Office or the Oreo Dream Extreme Cheesecake at the restaurant conservatives are defending. Fights over taste — who has it, who lacks it and whose tastes make them out of touch — are never about aesthetic preference alone. Politicians have always used food to project a relatable image – like you can trust me because I eat just like you; we belong to the same culinary tribe. It’s why we see so many candidates staging photo ops at the state fair showing them eating food popular in that area.

French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in “Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste,” stressed that differences in taste, including what we like to eat and how we style ourselves and our homes, don’t come out of nowhere, but are products of our class position and the cultural environments we were raised in, and can be expressions of power. So, to mock another person’s style is to mock their whole way of being and that of their community. Because Trump prompts his supporters to see attacks on him as attacks on them, Obama’s joke about a president worth an estimated $7 billion is being twisted into an attack on the everyman.

But Obama’s joke was about a person, not a group of people. Well, maybe it is about a group: narcissistic heads of state who use opulence to project power, wealth and might. As Obama later pointed out, Trump didn’t chafe at being likened to a brutal dictator responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. Nor did he seem to take offense at Obama accusing his administration of an unprecedented amount of corruption. He and his supporters want the public to believe Obama was belittling The Cheesecake Factory, one of the most popular restaurants in America.

Obama knows better than to do that. Like a good comedian, he succeeded at making a joke that mentioned a beloved eatery without making the people who eat there the butt of the joke. He was right to trust that anybody who has been to The Cheesecake Factory knows the décor is over the top, intentionally so, as it blends ancient Egyptian references with Victorian and French Rococo. On top of that, the menu contains more than 250 items. The Cheesecake Factory is a celebration of abundance — with portion sizes to match. That may make sense for a restaurant — but not so much for the White House.

And again, the joke is that Trump’s White House looks like Saddam Hussein designed Cheesecake Factory, meaning Trump’s aesthetic is especially garish and over the top. The Iraqi dictator, who was captured by U.S. forces in 2003 and executed by Iraq’s new government in 2006, built more than 100 palaces during his reign, and a 2003 NBC News story described them as “gold-plated living memorials to his 20-year reign.” Hussein’s monumental architecture was an assault on public space that he redesigned in his image.

The Iraqi dictator built more than 100 palaces during his reign, and a 2003 NBC News story described them as “gold-plated living memorials.”

Obama’s joke was a sophisticated way of calling Trump authoritarian, wasteful and tacky. I think Trump’s supporters know that, but they also know it’s easier to fall back on a tired trope that Barack Obama, and the Democratic Party, are out of touch than it is to defend Trump’s wasteful and authoritarian ways. And they certainly can’t defend him against the perception that he is tacky. Remember the NFT trading cards he marketed that depict him as a superhero, cowboy and astronaut?

During this first year in the White House, Obama’s critics dubbed him “President Poupon” for ordering a hamburger with Dijon mustard. He may never beat the “elite” charges. But it’s not elitist to say the White House shouldn’t be gilded in gold. None of us would care if Trump draws inspiration from Versailles for his private residences, but the White House belongs to all of us, and its design and decoration ought not overwhelm, intimidate or make others feel small. Nothing the president designs should make us think of The Cheesecake Factory — or Saddam Hussein.

The post We all know what Obama’s Cheesecake Factory joke was really about appeared first on MS NOW.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — A promise not to start foreign wars was a central plank of Donald Trump’s 2024 platform. In North Carolina, home to the nation’s most populous military base, Fort Bragg, people have taken that broken promise personally.

Elizabeth Boahn, 48, from Stedman, voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024. But in 2026, with her 18-year-old son, Colby, on the verge of joining the Navy after graduation, she’s regretting her support.

“It’s heartbreaking. I just, I pray that he doesn’t have to go over there,” said Boahn, referring to the Middle East.

When you shake a man’s hand, you look him in the eye. If they can’t, you don’t trust them … be a man of your word.”

—Elizabeth Boahn

“My granddaddy taught me this, and he was a Marine. When you shake a man’s hand, you look him in the eye. If they can’t, you don’t trust them … be a man of your word,” Boahn said. Asked if she considered Trump a man of his word, she said, “Nope.”

Asked how the war with Iran had affected her life, Boahn said, “it’s on the verge of taking my son away … 18 years old, hasn’t even really begun to live a life.”

She had choice words for the president. “He’s going over there and starting wars, that is destroying our economy. It’s causing my struggle of living,” she said.

Boahn’s frustration with the president’s broken promise stood in contrast to how some veterans who spoke to MS NOW reflected on Trump’s failure to stay out of foreign military conflicts.

Chad McKeown, who voted for Trump in 2024, served in the Army for 20 years and deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. After returning home, he started Kraken Customs, an auto body shop that emphasizes hiring veterans.

McKeown acknowledged the costs of the war with Iran. “This whole thing is an economic nightmare,” said the 45-year-old entrepreneur, who said his business is still doing well despite the headwinds.

But asked about his thoughts on the war itself, McKeown said it’s part of the military’s culture not to question orders from the commander in chief.

“When you put your life on the line for your country in the service — whether it’s Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, now Space Force — you learn how to humble yourself amongst those that are appointed above you,” he said.

The moment you get on the side of naysaying them or becoming a shadow governor, you are discrediting what we’re all supposed to be standing for.”

—Chad McKeown

“The moment you get on the side of naysaying them or becoming a shadow governor, you are discrediting what we’re all supposed to be standing for,” he said.

Mary Hampton, an Army veteran from Vander who voted for Trump three times, echoed that deference. “Do I want our troops home? Yes, I do, absolutely. But I’ve got to leave those decisions to other leaders that are in charge right now,” she said.

Reagan Juan, an Army veteran, has service in her blood. Her grandfather, Don Feeney, is one of the original members of Delta Force, the prestigious elite U.S. Army special operations unit. Juan, who was named after President Ronald Reagan, said she voted for Trump in 2024 solely because of his promise not to start any foreign wars.

“That’s such a big promise. We’re not just promising, you know, more funding for education, or we’re not promising tax cuts. This is people’s lives, our real lives,” said Juan, whose husband also served in the military.

“There needs to be way more checks and balances. There needs to be more oversight. There needs to be more transparency in what is actually going on,” Juan said. “There needs to be a clear end state. There needs to be a clear exit strategy. If we aren’t doing that, I don’t know what we’re doing out there,” she said.

Juan said she feels “shame” for voting for Trump and repeatedly described the war in Iran as “reckless.”

An Elon University poll from March 2026, shortly after the war began, found that 51% of North Carolina voters opposed military involvement in Iran. A more recent poll from Elon University in September found that number virtually unchanged, with 52% of registered voters disapproving of the war. That is lower than national polling averages on the issue: An October Pew poll found 65% of Americans disapproving of the president’s handling of the conflict.

My delivery expense has nearly doubled. My prices have been inflated, but my margins have remained the same, or less.”

—Jason Bruton

The longer this war has gone on, the less patient Jason Bruton has become. Bruton, an auto body shop franchisee, voted for Trump three times.

“The war in Iran is dragging on too long. I was supportive of it in the beginning when I thought it would be like a monthlong war,” he said. The Pentagon estimated that the war has cost more than $47 billion dollars, an investment Bruton doesn’t think will pay dividends.

“My delivery expense has nearly doubled. My prices have been inflated, but my margins have remained the same, or less, because I’m absorbing some of the cost of doing business and to help keep my customers,” Bruton said.

The post Trump’s broken promise not to start new wars is personal to N.C. voters appeared first on MS NOW.

The Republican National Committee rejected the narrative that both parties engage in similar tactics after a New York Times report exposed Democrat-linked efforts to recruit a second "Dan Sullivan" onto Alaska’s Senate ballot, saying Republicans are focused solely on securing elections while Democrats are "trying to be fraudulent."

"No, both sides of the aisle don’t do this," RNC election integrity communications director Ally Triolo told Fox News Digital on Thursday. "Our entire effort here at the RNC is securing elections, making them fair and free and honest."

"We are doing the exact opposite of what Democrats are trying to do. Democrats have voted time and time again against the Save America Act. They have voted against common sense safeguards.

DEM STRATEGIST SHRUGS OFF ALASKA BALLOT SCANDAL ON MS NOW, INSISTS 'THIS STUFF HAPPENS ALL THE TIME'

"We couldn't be more different from Republicans versus Democrats, and I honestly hope people see this straight in the eye with what's happened out of Alaska, that Democrats are completely disingenuous. They have ill intentions. They're trying to disenfranchise voters, and, of course, trying to be fraudulent.

"This is fraudulent behavior, and they need to be held accountable to the fullest extent."

The Times reported Wednesday that Senate nominee Mary Peltola’s campaign, aides from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and others worked to place a retired teacher named Dan J. Sullivan on the ballot.

JASON CHAFFETZ: DEMOCRATS TRIED TO TRICK ALASKA VOTERS. PELTOLA MUST ANSWER

"Republicans, we tried to fight this months ago and draw attention to this Democrat scheme," Triolo said. "And look, no wonder Democrats are against election integrity because they don't want to be held accountable for trying to disenfranchise voters and cheat the system."

"It has been abundantly clear from the get-go that this was a ploy to try to sway voters, confuse voters, take votes away from the real Sen. Dan Sullivan," she added. "And that is exactly why you saw the DOJ intervene just last week to make sure there were protections in place before the election could be certified to make sure everything was above board. And now we have this bombshell report coming out exposing exactly what we have been saying, and I think this points to the larger issue of Democrats continually fighting election integrity, because again, they have admitted that they cannot win fair and square when safeguards are in place."

TRUMP SAYS 'WE ARE LOOKING INTO' OTHER DAN SULLIVAN ON ALASKA BALLOT, WARNS ABOUT GOVERNOR'S RACE

The RNC election integrity unit has a major on-the-ground operation in Alaska, she said, including an in-state director, attorneys, observers and poll workers, and that President Donald Trump and the Justice Department have already moved to address the issue.

The DOJ last week sued to block certification of a potential Peltola win if votes for the second Sullivan could have changed the outcome, and a senior DOJ official told Fox News on Thursday that the criminal investigation has intensified, with officials examining possible civil-rights violations under 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 and 242.

Vice President JD Vance said authorities should "certainly look into whether [Peltola] committed election fraud," describing the effort as an attempt to "steal a Senate seat." Senate Majority Leader John Thune called it a "coordinated effort" and "totally dirty pool."

SEN DAN SULLIVAN BRANDS PELTOLA’S ALLEGED BALLOT SCHEME A ‘SCANDAL AT THE HIGHEST ORDER’

There is an "aggressive criminal investigation" into Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. appearing on the ballot, sources told Fox News. That investigation has only intensified since the Times' reporting but has been underway for several months.

This investigation, being run by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alaska, is expected to go beyond Tuesday's Election Day, and there will not be any sort of indictment or heavy grand jury activity before then.

'DECOY DAN' SULLIVAN CASE LEADS TOP SENATOR TO BREAK FOUR-YEAR X SILENCE: 'PATTERN OF LIES'

The DOJ thus far has declined to comment on the matter.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has also ordered a state investigation. Peltola’s campaign and DSCC officials have denied involvement in recruiting the second Sullivan to confuse voters, issuing warnings that "both sides" put up spoiler candidates in elections.

The Alaska Supreme Court previously ruled the second Dan Sullivan could remain on the ballot under state law.

"The RNC is heavily invested in protecting the vote in Alaska since this scheme came out," Triolo said. "We've been fighting it, drawing attention to it, doing everything we can to educate voters.

DEM BUCKS PARTY OVER ALLEGED ALASKA VOTE-SIPHONING EFFORT: 'NEITHER PARTY SHOULD BE DOING IT'

"We are heavily invested in securing Alaska and obviously this scheme is an absolute fraud. You saw President Trump come forward and say that Mary Peltola, the fake Dan Sullivan, all of these individuals should be held accountable not only for lying about their affiliation with the scheme, but also just for trying to deceive voters.

"We are seeing this play out in real time. Even The New York Times, the left-wing media, has no choice but to hold them accountable for their schemes.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

"So I think what we need to stay focused on, as Republicans, is that we need to keep the majority. This is why this midterm election feels like a presidential, because so much is at stake."

Fox News' David Spunt, William Mears and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.

Serbs voted “Students Win” without knowing what their program offers, it doesn’t even matter, “anyone is better than Vučić.”

Join us on Telegram, X, and VK.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

What to make of the present Serbian moment? Post-Milošević politics is closing a two-and-a-half-decade cycle, standing on the threshold of a new era whose dynamics mirror the old. But history does not repeat; it rhymes. Eerily familiar patterns, driven by traits of the collective Serbian psyche, are re-emerging, even as external and internal material conditions chart a divergent course.

Color Revolutions are quite simple on a level identical to basic marketing. Why does the average person opt to pay a considerable premium for Nikes over some generic basketball shoe? There is top-down vertical advertising at the first level, but this is later surpassed by horizontal peer to peer viralization which leverages on social acceptance. Here this is a simple combination of Edward Bernays’ 1923 work, Crystalizing Public Opinion, his 1928 work, Propaganda, combined with Gustav Le Bon’s 1895 work The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. Then of course there are Saul Alinsky, Gene Sharp, and Sharp’s student and Otpor! leader, Srđa Popović. But since the Arab Spring series of Color Revolutions, social media starting with Twitter became a critical factor.

There resides a great strength in social media, the TikTok generation, which also characterized by and large the foreign NGO-backed “Student” movement itself. The “Student list” came to power without clearly communicating to its own voters what exactly they would do on economic, territorial, and foreign policy matters if elected. On October 26th, they were placating Serbian nationalists and Eurosceptics on Russian television to absolve them of fears which in reality they are justified in having. We saw this also with Magyar in Hungary, so this part of the play’s script was not only already rehearsed, but had seen its opening night in the Hunnic lands to the north. But the “Student List” color revolutionaries did not wait long, on October 27^th, Ilija Srdanović, lead candidate of the Student List told the U.S. funded Radio Free Europe that the new government will continue EU integration and the EU-mediated dialogue with Pristina, we presume, towards Kosovo recognition.

Screenshot from RFE/RL Interview with Srdanovic

What Serbs before the election were told by the “Student List” was “Trust me, bro”, a gamble that a “majority” of people in the small Balkan country were apparently willing to take. We will not even discuss the improbability of over 600,000 new voters rising from graves or crawling out of strollers to vote, as Vučić is not challenging the results, even though the “Student List” Color Revolutionaries expected him to.

That fact alone relates to a broader economic and military crisis which looms overhead, and will be the subject of further analysis which will better explain why Vučić is in the optimal position politically as an opposition leader over the course of the coming years. But on that note, our prior analysis of the EU/NATO drive to war with Russia in 2029/2030 is all but certain; see Still a failure: The City of London backs EU’s €90 billion Ukraine war-chest.

The vaguemaxxing approach perfected at Occupy Wall Street sixteen years ago allowed the anti-Vučić opposition to present as a Rorschach blot of sorts; appearing as anti-EU/NATO nationalists to the nationalists and appear as pro-EU liberal to the liberals. Though, to wit, most sophisticated-enough liberals understood the strategy: to fool the “under-educated, Orthodox, working class, country-bumpkin nationalists”. This is part of the problem of the Serbian professional managerial class “intelligentsia” as Archibald Reiss understood over a century ago, and as we will discuss later on in this piece.

To understand the present moment requires grasping the years of betrayal that followed the post–Cold War era’s first color revolution, which unfolded in Belgrade twenty-six years ago. We outline those fifteen years before the rise of the Serbian Progressive Party for two important reasons; first to set the record straight on the actual condition of the “selling out” of Serbia as those new to the Serbia story are prone to believe the “Student list” ADHD propaganda that Vučić did these things, and second, perhaps more importantly, as a funhouse mirror forecast of sorts, given that we are nearing the start of a new rhyming historical cycle (back towards chaos and betrayals). However, the broader global context has changed. NATO is in a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Serbia is threatened on all sides, and is obviously both the lowest hanging fruit and the “punching bag” for the EU/NATO: what they cannot inflict upon Russia, they will inflict upon Serbia, which they regard as “little Russia”.

October 5^th – The “Bulldozer Revolution” – Color Revolutionaries storm the Parliament building and overthrow Milošević

Recall back in October, 2000; after winning the election, DOS (Demokratska opozicija Srbije), whose representative at the time was Vojislav Koštunica, the ruling party Socialists hastily betrayed and extradited their man, former president Slobodan Milošević, to an ad hoc tribunal established by bodies that had no jurisdiction over it. Immediately before the election, the sentiment of the people and the opposition movement “Otpor” was that anyone was better than Slobodan Milošević; they promised prosperity, peace and stability, a state without corruption or the mafia, and the people believed it. Following the election results, celebrations lasted for days with the slogan “He’s finished” and with hope for a better tomorrow. Their “better tomorrow” never came.

Serbia was in an abyss from 2000 all the way to 2012, around 1200 state-owned companies were sold for chump change, largely to foreign interests. These had been not only a mark of sovereignty, but also provided fair and reliable wages that working families relied upon. Because of the leaders of the DOS, Serbia was economically destroyed in the years that followed. When it was believed things couldn’t get worse, they proved Serbs wrong. Serbia was ruled by a party whose members were not in agreement regarding politics and the path they wanted to take, for all that united them was the rancid combination of Western backing and opposition to Milošević, (and this is the same contradiction we find with the “Student government” today).

This was evidenced again in 2003 with the extradition of the president of the opposition Radical Party, Vojislav Šešelj, to the Hague Tribunal, where he remained until 2014 and was never convicted, and released and returned to Serbia in 2016 as the result of back-channel work done under Vučić in coordination with the Radical Party (an effort which this author participated). Later in that same year of 2003, just a month after Šešelj’s extradition, Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić was likely assassinated by members of the Serbian security establishment who feared that Đinđić would continue to extradite more Serbian patriots, which further weakened an already shaken state. Following this and the failed presidential elections, the disagreements between the leaders of DOS reached a culmination and the party split into two fronts, DS and DSS. During 2003 and 2004 Serbia had no president but rather a string of acting presidents: first Nataša Mićić (Civic Alliance of Serbia), who held that duty for three months, then Dragan Maršićanin (DSS) held the role for a month, then Predrag Marković (G17plus) performed the function for three months, after which Boris Tadić, of the Democratic Party (DS), was elected president in July 2004.

To make themselves more acceptable to EU membership, Serbian laws were changed and a new Constitution was adopted in 2006, during the term of President Tadić. In that constitution, Kosovo and Metohija were placed in the preamble of the constitution supposedly to emphasize the significance of the fact that Kosovo and Metohija is part of Serbia, forgetting to emphasize that the preamble of a constitution is not necessarily a binding part. Immediately before the adoption of the 2006 Constitution, the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro was dissolved, leaving Serbia landlocked. This was the culmination of a Western-instructed independence referendum, made possible when Serbian authorities previously signed the Belgrade Agreement to restructure relations between Serbia and Montenegro, where there we saw the renaming of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia into the Union State of Serbia and Montenegro before its eventual split. A questionable constitution was adopted. At that moment, Serbia had no real army, the “Democratic” authorities made sure of this during that period, which in turn laid the perfect groundwork for the ethnic Albanian declaration of independence of Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia in February 2008. Serbia had no army to defend it, the people took to the streets and protested, but since preserving Serbian sovereignty was not on the list of Western/NGO requirements of Serbia, nothing came of it. Nota bene: this is what happens when protests are without mass institutional support (foreign or domestic); the elites weather them and people’s spontaneous protests fizzle out and demoralization sets in. Sustained protests for years requires massive organization and high levels of funding and coordination.

After this, Serbia under Tadić signs the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU. In 2008 Serbia experiences an economic crash during the global crisis engineered by Wall Street and the City of London (which as an aside led to the next round of Color Revolutions in the form of the Arab Spring within two years), the loss of jobs, and a spike in the euro exchange rate. After that, the then- Democratic Party (DS) authorities under President Tadić extradited more Serbian heroes to the Hague Tribunal: Republika Srpska President Radovan Karadžić in 2008, followed Ratko Mladić and Goran Hadžić in 2011, in exchange for which Serbia received candidate status for EU membership.

Archibald Reiss, the Swiss criminologist and Serbophile was so moved by the Serbian spirit, unity, and sacrifice during the First World War that he made Serbia his home, but in equal measure found himself outraged and indeed demoralized by the levels of corruption, opportunism, and classism among the elites both during and after the war. His insights into the Serbian mentality tell us a lot about what we have just seen, or rather, why things played out the way they did. Reiss meticulously dissected the tragic rift between the noble, heroic ordinary people and a self-serving, corrupt intellectual and political elite. Reiss would have viewed the foreign-backed NGO color revolution that ousted Vučić as little more than another manifestation of the Serbian elite’s moral decay, naivety, and subservience to external powers, and also their sense of entitlement lording over the Serbian masses, in Ottoman style, but worse for it requires manipulating and playing upon Serbian patriotism, sense of duty, and their deep rooted commitment to both personal and collective freedom. Reiss would sharply lament how the populace, endowed with immense bravery yet often prone to political short-sightedness and easily gas-lit by grand rhetoric, allowed themselves to become pawns in a geopolitical game orchestrated by foreign money and nefarious interests. He would fiercely criticize the urban “intelligentsia” and opportunistic political actors for their uncritical envy and imitation of foreign masters (what today we would call a product of autochauvinism combined with foreign soft power acculturation), pointing out that in exchanging one ostensibly “corrupt autocrat” for leaders beholden to external NGOs, Serbia merely traded internal political clientelism for foreign subservience. To Reiss, actual national sovereignty and social justice could never be gifted by foreign-funded apparatuses; rather, by relying on foreign interventions instead of conducting a deep, self-reliant moral regeneration from within, Serbians had once again fallen victim to their tragic flaw: letting the “king of money” and corrupt elites dictate their destiny while losing sight of their own authentic identity.

Čujte Srbi: čuvajte se sebe – by Rodolphe Archibald Reiss

Reiss observed that the Serbian political elite and the self-proclaimed intelligentsia flipped wildly between a sense of superiority over their own populace and deep-seated envy of wealthier, more advanced foreign nations. Their idea of modernizing Serbia was not to build on authentic national virtues, but to copy external models superficially (today, the EU or the ‘Nordic model’) while harboring a hidden disdain for the common Serbian peasant (Vučić voters, derided as Sendvučić, voting in exchange for sandwiches). Modernization, in that sense, was a vanity project rather than a matter of national survival.

Magyar offers congratulations to the Student List

So now here in late October 2026 we hear “He’s finished” on the streets. Once again, Serbs have bought the lie. Once again a state without corruption, without a mafia was promised. Serbs voted “Students Win” without knowing what their program offers, it doesn’t even matter, “anyone is better than Vučić.” The paradox is that now the state will be led by the very people who ruined it in the period from 2000 to 2012 and to finish everything they couldn’t back then. We can forecast the return of the Hungarian separatist movement in Vojvodina, which flourished in the early 2000s with the support of the Provincial Government headed by Bojan Pajtić in the period from 2004 to 2009, who is now on the Students Win parliamentary list. Without Orbán in Hungary, and specifically with Magyar there in charge, we can all but guarantee it. But as we have said, war is on the horizon. Where the Russian army situates by 2028 will determine much. Where the U.S. will situate after presidential elections in November of that same year will determine the rest.

Follow Joaquin Flores on Telegram @NewResistance or on X/Twitter @XoaquinFlores

Plus, the Friday news quiz.

© Sean Rayford for The New York Times

Young men swung to Donald Trump in 2024. Polling shows they are now moving away — but to what? Sabrina Tavernise, a reporter for The New York Times, went to Michigan to find out.

© Luke Piotrowski/The New York Times

A backlash over high prices helped Republicans capture a majority in 2024. Now, it may be the source of the party’s own undoing.

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

Polls show the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham in a virtual tie with her Democratic opponent, Dr. Annie Andrews. An upset was unthinkable just a few months ago.

© Win Mcnamee/Getty Images

Forget California’s billionaire wealth tax. The economist Natasha Sarin believes there are better ways to make billionaires pay up.

© The New York Times

The fate of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive candidate in the race, will serve as a litmus test for the left’s potency heading into the next presidential contest.

© Nick Hagen for The New York Times

What lit a fire under billionaire SpaceX CEO Elon Musk this midterm cycle?

He’s given more than $445 million to Republican candidates and causes this year, making him the single biggest disclosed donor in the 2026 midterms — and the biggest single donor in a midterm cycle ever.

According to the most recent data, he’s given:

REPUBLICAN CAVALRY ARRIVES FOR KEN PAXTON AS BIG-BUCKS TEXAS OFFENSIVE OPENS CASH FLOODGATES

• An estimated $189 million to support Ken Paxton’s Senate bid in Texas.
• $10 million to the Republican Governors Association campaign fund, including funds for the gubernatorial race in New York state.
• At least $5 million to the GOP PAC MAGA Inc., which is building a strong ground game in key races in both the House and Senate.

SENATE CONTROL IS A COIN FLIP — AND DEMOCRATS’ PATH RUNS THROUGH TRUMP COUNTRY

All this makes the $288 million Musk gave to help elect President Donald Trump and Republicans in 2024 look miserly.

Why so much more? Because Musk realizes that keeping the Republican majority in Congress has become crucial to America’s secure and prosperous future.

On his social media platform, Musk shared a post last week agreeing that Democrats "must lose" the midterms. Critics claim he’s doing this because he fears investigations by a Democrat-controlled Congress. The truth is, he understands what it takes to build a strong America and what threatens to tear it down.

He’s not alone. He’s been joined by other tech and financial billionaires who are spending tens of millions to protect America’s future from the Democrats.

WARREN GETS DEFENSIVE WHEN PRESSED ON DEMOCRATS ACCEPTING BILLIONAIRE DONATIONS

Tech entrepreneurs and venture capital giants Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz are major contributors to Trump’s MAGA, Inc.

Citadel’s Ken Griffin has spent at least $40 million to support Republican candidates.

Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman and his wife Christine have put up almost $32 million to Republican-affiliated political organizations and super PACs this election cycle.

It’s not just tech billionaires who’ve opened their wallets to the GOP. Uline founders Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein have reportedly put up $124 million for their own Restoration of America PAC, and roofing company ABC Supply Chairman Diane Hendricks has given $25 million to MAGA, Inc.

'DARK MONEY’ GROUP ACCUSED OF 'SCHEME' TO TIP ELECTION IN FAVOR OF DEMOCRATS, MANIPULATE GOP VOTERS

In 2025, we saw the denizens of America’s high-tech sector — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook and key Google executives — paying out millions for Trump’s inauguration festivities. Bezos, Cook, Zuckerberg and OpenAI’s Sam Altman even attended the inauguration in person — as did Elon Musk.

What did they understand about Trump and the GOP that the media didn’t?

This midterm cycle, according to The Washington Post, total Republican-leaning mega-donors have contributed $1.7 billion this cycle with Musk leading the way, compared to $832 million from Democratic-leaning givers.

Critics dismiss these donors as superrich oligarchs and robber barons trying to protect their ill-gotten money. Critics are wrong, tragically wrong. The truth is, the key stewards of our private sector economy are taking bold action to protect America’s future.

That’s because they see two possible paths to the future, and only two. One makes America strong, prosperous and secure, with tax cuts, investment, energy dominance and a strong, unequaled military.

One deals finally with the Iran that has destabilized the Middle East and killed thousands around the world, including American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, for four decades.

One sees the need to cut what the GAO says could be as much as $500 billion of fraud from the federal budget — the cause that rallied Elon Musk to the DOGE agenda in the first place.

One sees American AI dominance as key to protecting our freedom.

One sees restoring America’s manufacturing and industrial base as key to protecting prosperity.

All that stands on one side. On the other is a party that makes unsustainable policy promises like "Medicare for All."

A party that will give back the uncontrolled government spending spree that drove cumulative inflation up 21% during the Biden years.

A party cradled in corruption, waste and fraud, as exposed first by DOGE and now by Vice President JD Vance’s anti-fraud task force.

A party that has consistently presented weakness and prevarication to America’s foes, whether it’s Iran or China or the Muslim Brotherhood.

Finally, a party that threatens to mobilize the same radical forces that have turned the streets of France and European cities into battlegrounds.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

The choice is clear to Elon Musk, and our private sector’s best and brightest founders and entrepreneurs. Those 77 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 now face the same choice. It is either to return to the voting booth in order to protect America’s safe and prosperous future or hand Congress over to those who want to bring back a bankrupt and discredited past.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The choice seems easy. It will be America’s tragedy, and ours, if we don’t take it together.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM ARTHUR HERMAN

Ukraine's Defense Forces hit the Novokuibyshevsk oil refinery in Russia's Samara Oblast with FP-1 drones early on 30 October, Ukrainian drone maker Fire Point said, adding that one of the units hit hydrotreats diesel fuel. The strike came hours after WSJ reported that Ukraine had paused strikes on Russian refineries under pressure from US President Donald Trump until after the US midterm elections on 3 November.

Russia is pounding Ukraine's power grid and cities ahead of winter, with a mounting civilian toll, including 14 people killed on a Dnipro railway platform on 29 October. Ukraine's long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries, one of its most effective operations against Moscow, target the oil money that pays for that war. Trump has pressed Kyiv for weeks to stop them, blaming them for high global fuel prices, and Ukraine went quiet without saying so and without getting what it asked for in return, WSJ reported. The Samara strike is the first on Russian oil since then. Kyiv has not said whether the pause is over.

Fires spread across a refinery that makes jet fuel for Russia's military

Residents of Novokuibyshevsk reported drones, explosions, and a fire before dawn. Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ posted the first photos on Telegram at 05:24 Kyiv time, and Russian Telegram channel Astra geolocated the fire to the refinery, citing its open-source analysis of residents' photos.

Novokuybyshevsk, Samara region: locals report an attack and a fire. pic.twitter.com/9UEgqmkAOU

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 30, 2026

By morning, Exilenova+ counted at least 11 separate fires at the refinery. Samara Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said air defense and mobile fire groups were repelling an attack, Astra reported. The region had declared a drone alert and closed its airport.

Fire Point said its FP-1 drones scored numerous hits on the refinery grounds, and that one of the units hit hydrotreats diesel fuel. The footage published so far shows several smoke columns over the plant but does not show which units burned. The Rosneft-owned refinery has a design capacity of 8.8 million tons of oil a year and is one of the main producers of jet fuel, according to its website. Astra says it supplies jet fuel to Russia's military. The plant lies about 910 km from the front line. Ukraine's General Staff has not commented.

pic.twitter.com/Ku6KRCKJ6v

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 30, 2026

Ukrainian drones have hit the plant before. Ukraine's military said its forces hit it in August and caused a fire.

It is the first fire at a Russian refinery since 15 October, when Ryazan's governor reported one at the city's refinery. It is also the first reported strike on Russia's oil industry since 20 October, when Ukrainian drones hit a Druzhba pipeline pumping station in Tambov Oblast. WSJ called that strike the last before the pause.

WSJ claims: Ukraine paused refinery strikes until after the US midterms

Ukraine's military paused its strikes on Russian refineries after weeks of pressure from Trump shook Kyiv's confidence in US support, people with knowledge of the operations told WSJ. The unofficial pause began early last week and is expected to last until after the midterms, and possibly deeper into November. Units carrying out long-range strikes were told in mid-October that the refinery campaign was effectively on hold once missions already under way were completed, two military officials said. Hours after the report, the Novokuibyshevsk strike called that account into question.

Ukraine's government has not announced a pause. Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on 27 October that “our guys tried to be a little more careful during these days. But they do not have an order” not to hit refineries, according to WSJ. He said drone units were hitting other kinds of targets in Russia.

Trump's envoy Jared Kushner repeated the demand to stop the strikes at a meeting with Zelenskyy in Oslo on 20 October, two US officials told WSJ. One of them called the conversation “very tough.” Kushner, who joined remotely, said he and envoy Steve Witkoff were spending a lot of time, energy, and jet fuel on mediating with Moscow, and that a 30-day pause on refineries would be a way for Ukraine to show gratitude, the official said.

Zelenskyy had asked for something in return, WSJ reported: a mutual energy ceasefire with Russia, Patriot missiles for Ukraine's grid, or permission to use Starlink inside Russia so drones could destroy Russian missile launchers. None of those ideas got far. Some of Kyiv's European backers also nudged Zelenskyy to pause until after the midterms, a senior European official said.

The pause showed in Russia's oil industry. Russian refinery utilization at the end of October was 25% higher than at the start of the month as drone attacks subsided, Reuters reported, according to The Moscow Times.

Russia claims over 1,000 drones for a second night as Moscow's airports close again

Russia's Defense Ministry said it downed 1,043 Ukrainian drones overnight over 19 regions, including Samara Oblast, the Moscow region, and Tatarstan. The night before, it claimed 1,214.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin stated that 862 drones flew toward the Moscow region between 20:30 on 29 October and 07:30 on 30 October, that most were downed on the far approaches, and that 170 were downed on approach to the capital. Russia's aviation agency restricted flights at all four Moscow airports, Astra reported. A day earlier, more than 460 flights were delayed or canceled at Moscow and St. Petersburg airports, Astra counted.

In Starodub, in Russia's Bryansk Oblast, about 35 km from the Ukrainian border, a building of the Konservsushprod plant, which makes canned food for the Russian army, appeared to be on fire in readers' photos and videos, Astra reported, saying the plant was presumably attacked and that its open-source analyst had not verified the footage. The Atesh partisan movement reported a blast in Aleksandrovka in Rostov Oblast, and air defense fire and an explosion in Orel.

By Brett WILKINS

“This reveals the DNA of Bolsonarism,” said one critic. “Bolsonarism is made of cowardice.”

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Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Just one day after vowing he would remain in Brazil to disprove allegations of money laundering, corruption, and other crimes, far-right Brazilian Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro followed in his disgraced father’s footsteps by fleeing to the United States after losing a presidential election.

Bolsonaro, his wife Fernanda Bolsonaro, and their two daughters, ages 14 and 12, left Brazil for an unknown location in the United States, according to initial reporting by Isadora Teixeira at the Brasília-based news site Metrópoles, which was subsequently confirmed by other Brazilian and international media.

The Argentinian site Infobae reported that Bolsonaro and his family may have crossed into Argentina—which is run by his ally, far-right President Javier Milei—and then traveled to the US in a private jet. It is not known where the family went in the US.

Bolsonaro’s brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, lives in Texas while facing criminal punishment in Brazil after trying to use the Trump administration to pressure Brazilian authorities over the prosecution of his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who last year was convicted of conspiring to violently remain in power following leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s 2022 election win.

Flávio Bolsonaro, a 45-year-old senator representing Rio de Janeiro, was defeated by Lula in Sunday’s second-round election, but refused to accept the results and groundlessly demanded an annulment. The following day, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the seizure of Bolsonaro’s passport. He was supposed to have turned in the document Tuesday, but he didn’t.

US President Donald Trump also cast doubt on the election’s outcome, saying the contest appeared to be “rigged.”

Jair Bolsonaro also fled to the United States while refusing to acknowledge his own 2022 defeat, which occurred during the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Like Trump, Bolsonaro incited a violent insurrection in his nation’s capital following his loss.

Unlike Trump, Bolsonaro was held accountable for his crimes, and, in addition to a 27-year prison sentence—now being served under house arrest—is banned from running for any political office for the rest of the decade.

Now, with Trump back in the White House and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in charge at Foggy Bottom, Bolsonaro and his relatives are set to be issued US visas, a senior State Department official told The Associated Press.

The younger Bolsonaro’s flight—which may have been aided by his obtaining an Italian passport in 2023—contradicts his pledge on Monday, when he said, “I have never thought about leaving the country” and “I will hand over my passports and defend myself against this travesty.”

He was referring to de Morães’ order to surrender his passport amid accusations of corruption, money laundering, tax evasion, and foreign currency violations.

Bolsonaro is also the subject of an inquiry pertaining to the millions of dollars he raised from a disgraced banker implicated in a massive corrupt plot to finance a biopic of Jair Bolsonaro.

The senator has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing.

Bolsonaro’s flight stands in stark contrast to Lula, who spent 580 days in prison after being convicted in corruption cases stemming from the sprawling Operation Car Wash investigation.

In 2021, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court annulled Lula’s convictions on procedural grounds, ruling that the court in Curitiba lacked jurisdiction over the cases and separately finding that former judge Sergio Moro had acted with bias in one of them. The decisions restored Lula’s political rights and eligibility to run for office, paving the way for his 2022 presidential victory over Bolsonaro.

Lula responded to the senator’s departure by saying, “Unfortunately, the Bolsonaro family is like that.”

“Brazil is his second homeland,” the president continued, accusing Bolsonaro of “bootlicking in the United States.”

Secretary-General of the Brazilian Presidency Guilherme Castro Boulos ripped Bolsonaro, saying: “Leaders face things head-on! Rats run away!”

“It is a shameful thing, which should make Brazilian society as a whole reflect, especially those who supported and voted for Flávio Bolsonaro,” Boulos asserted. “He slapped his supporters in the face and left them on the side of the road.”

“Almost 60 million Brazilians trusted him as political leadership to run the country, and 24 hours later, he flees,” he continued. “And it’s no use coming up with this talk of persecution, of dictatorship. He ran away because he must.”

“This reveals the DNA of Bolsonarism,” Boulos added. “Bolsonarism is made of cowardice.”

Erika Hilton, a member of the Chamber of Deputies—the lower house of Brazil’s Legislature—representing São Paulo for the Socialism and Liberty Party, weighed in on social media, calling Bolsonaro “a traitor to the homeland.”

In the United States, Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said on X that “losing an election is not grounds for asylum.”

“Yet the Trump administration is giving Flávio Bolsonaro safe haven in the United States,” he continued. “The Trump administration owes Congress answers on its role helping Bolsonaro flee Brazil in contravention of Brazilian law.”

Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR), told Common Dreams:

Trump is now the most corrupt president in US history, raking in billions from his presidency. It’s no surprise when the most powerful corrupt authoritarian government in the hemisphere uses international law designed to protect the persecuted to shield another corrupt authoritarian government from criminal prosecution. Perhaps this is what is meant by the Trump-led ‘Shield of the Americas.’

Francesca Emanuele, senior international policy associate at CEPR, noted that “the United States has long served as a destination for numerous right-wing Latin American political figures who fled their home countries while facing corruption allegations, criminal investigations, or accusations of grave human rights violations, including crimes against humanity.”

“The list is extensive,” she added, “ranging from former presidents such as Panama’s Ricardo Martinelli and Bolivia’s Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada to dictators such as Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza.”

Emanuele also contrasted the actions of the Bolsonaros and Lula, arguing that the latter’s decision to remain in Brazil “reflected a commitment to the Brazilian people and a determination to defend his rights through the country’s own institutions, even when those institutions failed to uphold them.”

“Rather than leaving Brazil,” she told Common Dreams, “Lula stayed, fought to clear his name, and continued his political struggle alongside the people he sought to represent.”

Original article:  www.commondreams.org

The move comes amid a federal dispute over election oversight and a court ruling blocking efforts to set aside more than 20,000 mail-in ballots.

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that he would deploy election lawyers and observers across the state to protect voters’ rights, escalating a confrontation with President Donald Trump’s administration over federal involvement in polling places ahead of the elections.

RELATED: More Than 26.6 Million Have Voted Early in U.S. Midterms

The legal teams will be sent to key districts with closely contested races, Newsom said, warning against unauthorized interference in the electoral process.

“A warning to Donald Trump: I’m deploying election lawyers to key battleground districts in California to protect every vote. And I just made it a FELONY to illegally seize ballots,” the Democratic governor wrote on social media platform X.

Newsom also approved legislation making the unlawful seizure of election ballots a felony, establishing criminal penalties for unauthorized interference with ballots.

A warning to Donald Trump:

I’m deploying election lawyers to key battleground districts in California to protect every vote.

And I just made it a FELONY to illegally seize ballots.

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) October 29, 2026

The measures follow the Trump administration’s announcement that it would deploy federal agents to polling places to prevent potential electoral irregularities. Trump has repeatedly accused California of failing to address alleged voter fraud.

Speaking Wednesday night on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Newsom criticized the administration’s approach, accusing the White House of trying to suppress votes and create grounds to challenge the election results.

He argued that the administration was seeking to create conditions that could later be used to question the outcome and allege fraud.

The dispute has also reached the courts. On Wednesday, a federal judge rejected a Justice Department request to set aside more than 20,000 mail-in ballots cast in California while authorities verified voters’ citizenship.

The judge warned that withholding the ballots would cause widespread disruption and interfere with an electoral process already underway.

California officials had also questioned the reliability of the voter list submitted by the federal government and rejected its request to verify voters’ citizenship before ballots were counted.

The Justice Department confirmed it would appeal the ruling, setting the stage for further legal disputes between federal and state authorities before the election process concludes.

Unions and left-wing groups plan further demonstrations in November, calling for the release of opposition figure Luisa González.

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Nearly 100 people marched through Ecuador’s capital, Quito, on Thursday to protest President Daniel Noboa’s government, launching a new wave of demonstrations ahead of local elections scheduled for Nov. 29.

RELATED: Ecuador Readies Snap Regional Elections Amid Opposition Exclusion Accusations

Organized by the country’s main trade unions and left-wing political parties, the peaceful march moved through the historic center before reaching the attorney general’s office. Protesters gathered outside the building carrying banners demanding the release of Luisa González, a former presidential candidate and one of the leading opposition figures.

González, who belongs to the political movement associated with former President Rafael Correa, was placed in pretrial detention in a case involving alleged money laundering. Prosecutors accuse her of involvement in the irregular financing of her first presidential campaign in 2023.

Chanting “Out, Noboa, out,” demonstrators also called for improvements to public education and healthcare. Some participants urged voters to cast null ballots in the upcoming local elections.

Natasha Rojas, a politician and activist, described the mobilization as a defense of democracy, civil liberties and the rights of Ecuadorians. She argued that the government was losing public support and warned that its policies would fuel further protests.

Nelson Erazo, president of the Popular Front, accused state institutions, including the attorney general’s office and the comptroller’s office, of being used to target social activists and political leaders.

He said the demonstration brought together groups seeking political change and demanding that Ecuadorians be able to express themselves freely, with guarantees of access to education, healthcare and employment.

Opposition organizations have announced further demonstrations on Nov. 7 and 15, followed by a march alongside feminist groups on Nov. 25 to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Another mobilization is planned for Dec. 10, in coordination with international organizations, to defend human rights.

Gains for Arab-led parties have electrified Taibe, in central Israel, even as voters elsewhere in Israel say they have no place in any future government.

© Ammar Awad/Reuters

Ryan Dinnage – who accompanied Reform UK leader on walkabouts before local elections – was later jailed, raising questions about vetting failure

One of Nigel Farage’s security team who accompanied him on the local election campaign trail this year was facing a rape charge and was later jailed for eight years, raising questions about a failure of vetting.

Ryan Dinnage spent time protecting Farage in April and May, but in June was convicted of having raped a woman while she slept in a caravan at the Royal Windsor horse show.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

© Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

© Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

President Trump has been holding hours-long rallies for G.O.P. candidates nearly every day for weeks.

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

Thursday on “ABC News Live,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) spoke with ABC News correspondent Jay O’Brien regarding the possible impeachment of President Donald Trump. Jeffries said, “The American people are clearly poised to give House and Senate Democrats

The post Jeffries on Impeachment: We ‘Haven’t Ruled Anything Out’ appeared first on Breitbart.