Foreign Affairs: Lula Wins. Machado Returns. Europe Still Burning. Beasts Attack Coliseum. Why Is Trump Going Where He’s Going? Irrational Cornell. Kiss of the Spider Granny? And More
Yes, the all-important midterms are a week from tomorrow, but we must go abroad first thing this morning: Europe is still burning (here also) and so, apparently, is Brazil’s stock market, which is set for a historic selloff after Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 80, clung to power in Brazil’s presidential election yesterday.
Lula thanked the voters for his surprise win over conservative Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro. Lula might also have thanked the judge (previous link):
The victory came after da Silva’s Workers’ Party requested that voting be extended Sunday, after reports that some local governments had reduced the number of buses serving poorer voters, who tend to support the president.
That request was granted by Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin—a decision that came a minute after voting was supposed to end, prompting chaos at some polling stations. While Bolsonaro’s camp also requested an extension to voting in some parts of the country because of flooding, the move by Zanin, who served as da Silva’s personal defense lawyer during the so-called Car Wash corruption scandal that entangled the leftist, drew criticism of bias.
The Wall Street Journal’s Latin America columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady comments:
That Lula prevailed may be a testament to the power of the public purse to buy the support of voters hurt by Lula’s policies. Now the question is when he will run out of other people’s money.
At great peril to her life, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has returned to Venezuela, where she is being greeted as a returning hero. A Wall Street Journal editorial contends that she needs President Trump’s help (remember she gave him her Nobel Prize). Her return argues for an early election date and process, according to the editorial. Powerline, which notes that her first appearance was at a church, wishes her “all the luck in the world.”
Instead of devouring Christians inside Rome’s Coliseum, this time the ravening beasts stormed the gates to the ancient structure waving Palestinian flags. Will Europe’s riots come to the U.S.? David Harsanyi writes that Democrats are “scheming” to “turn the U.S. into France riots and all.” Harsanyi writes that it starts with a country spending more money than it has:
Many of those riots have been driven by reliance on government handouts or by Muslims living in the Paris suburbs.
The more you hook people on state dependency, the less likely they are to break free of it.
“France ‘on the Brink of Civil War’” is the headline of a Wall Street Journal weekend feature that included an interview with the philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy. The “moral meltdown” and torching of a historic town hall in Limoges “has broken Mr. Lévy’s heart:”
“For French people who do not believe in heaven, the fire at Limoges is a kind of secular counterpart to the fire at Notre-Dame in Paris,” Mr. Lévy says, referring to the destruction of much of the storied cathedral seven years ago. “When the dome of Limoges town hall went up in flames and came crashing down, it was not just a roof that collapsed. A little of the soul of France.
“Welcome to the era of champagne jihadism,” by Heydon Prowse at Spiked Online, proposes that the French riots show that “violent anti-Westernism is now de rigueur among bourgeois leftists.” Prowse writes:
The GQ poster boy of this movement is multimillionaire Hasan Piker, who has proclaimed that America deserved 9/11, that his favourite flag is Hezbollah’s and that he would ‘vote for Hamas over Israel’. Awkwardly, if he lived under Hamas, he wouldn’t be able to vote for anyone. …
But the rioters are not destroying capitalism – one Bangladeshi phone shop at a time – for the love of la patrie. They’re doing it for Palestine, the flag of which has largely replaced the tricolore during the riots. … Whether it’s the suffering of ordinary Gazans under Hamas or the destruction of an immigrant’s livelihood in Paris, the revolution demands sacrifice. Preferably someone else’s.
Also, at Spiked Online, the great Julie Burchill writes about “the ‘homicidal empathy’ of the Islamo-left,” a play on Gad Saad’s “suicidal empathy.” “Do progressives get a sado-masochistic thrill out of being doormats for terrorists?” the story asks.
Time to come home to America and the midterms. The Wall Street Journal’s Philip Wegman gives us “eleven hours of Trump” (Ms. Must gets more than that every day simply by staying tuned to Fox) by taking us behind the scenes at the rallies. Meanwhile, Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York explores “the logic behind Trump’s ‘pretend I’m on the ballot’ appeal“:
Why go to the place where Republicans are guaranteed a solid win? Why not campaign in a part of Iowa where the GOP needs help, needs to improve its performance?
The answer is low-propensity voters. … They are the kind who probably wouldn’t turn out for a midterm election in 2026 with no Trump on the ballot. The GOP challenge is how to get their votes this time.
Conservative radio host Erick Erickson gets the lead spot at The Free Press to advise voters: “Don’t Eat the Shit Sandwich.” “Both parties ask their supporters to accept vile candidates every two years. They say the stakes are too high to refuse, but nothing will improve unless more of us do,” claims Erickson, who is sitting out the Georgia Senate Race (Ossoff and Collins) this year. Victor Davis Hanson strongly disagrees with Erickson: “No ordinary midterm — this election is a stark choice for America’s future” is VDH’s take. Just a question for Mr. Erickson: Would you make the same choice if you lived in Michigan? Just for fun (sort of): Jonah Goldberg says that “the problem with our politics is ‘very left-wing White women’ and ‘very right-wing White men.’“
“Cornell’s Real Crisis Is Irrationalism, Not Rape” is City Journal’s headline on Heather Mac Donald’s latest. A snippet:
Why are female Cornell students saying that they feel unsafe on campus? Because they are surrounded by adults who are just as unhinged as they are.
On October 28, the Cornell Faculty Senate will vote on a resolution of no confidence in the university administration. The instigator of that resolution, the director of Cornell’s Latina/o Studies graduate program, published his argument for censure in the student newspaper on Friday. A week before, more than 200 Cornell professors released a manifesto expressing their “outrage” at Cornell’s alleged rape culture….
If you want to understand the co-dependency between self-engrossed students and self-indulgent faculty, these two documents tell you all that you need to know….
The faculty apologize to the students with an unctuousness worthy of a Tartuffe. “We [failed] to create spaces where you feel safe to share your experiences,” they write to their fellow players in this melodrama of victimhood.
The perils of one-party rule. “One-Party D.C. Is Ducking the Big Issues”: “A long era of Democratic governance has made a foie gras ban [on D.C. menus] seem important.” Nic Rowan reports on the quack polling on the issue:
Initiative 86, as the proposed ban is called, will probably pass by a wide margin. Despite Washington’s penchant for foie gras, nearly 80% of surveyed residents, when asked to consider the ethics of its production, admit feeling queasy about the force-feeding of ducks and geese. But the polling, which was conducted by the special interest group behind the ban, may not tell the whole story. In my experience, even those who say they support the ban often can’t resist the French delicacy.
“When Grandmothers Attack.” “The Irish government funds an ad that implies a kiss from your grandparents could constitute abuse.” Yet another downer: Dominic Green reveals “How Agentic AI Could Destroy Civilization.” Well, it was nice while it lasted. Favorite Newsmaker of the Day: An adorable runaway cow who sparked a police chase through a New York town:
Put your hooves where I can see them!
A runaway cow sparked a police chase through a New York town — and even escaped an attempt to lasso her as she quickly trotted down a roadway.
Maggie, a 4-year-old Highland cow, escaped from Little Cabin’s Farm in Carmel on Tuesday and ran loose across the quiet Putnam County suburb over the weekend, News12 reported.
Maggie is saved and reunited with her calf. No charges, which in this instance is as it should be.
