Will Netanyahu Survive? Obama: Cheesecake Factory Is Tacky. But Not Commie Candidates. Jews Blamed for High Cost of Food. Catholic Bishops: We Wuz Tricked into Praying with DJT. More
While we’re wrapped up in our own midterms, Israel is voting today in its first election since October 7. Turnout is massive.
“Israel braces for an election each side warns could bring ruin,” according to Axios. Sound familiar? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the fight of his life. The man most likely to replace Netanyahu, if he doesn’t make it, is Gadi Eisenkot.
“His Son Was Killed in Gaza. He Could Be Israel’s Next Leader,” is the Free Press headline. The Free Press elaborates:
Gadi Eisenkot is a former IDF leader who rarely wears a suit, avoids political grandstanding, and says little about himself. And he’s leading in polls against Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
President Trump has endorsed Netanyahu. Twice. “When you go to the polls, please remember that Bibi [Netanyahu] has been an outstanding Warrior Prime Minister!” Trump wrote. This is an allusion to Israel’s and the U.S.’s sometimes rocky cooperation regarding Iran. Netanyahu stirs strong emotions. “Why Netanyahu Could—and Should—Win” is the headline on a Free Press piece by Gadi Taub. “Benjamin Netanyahu faces the fight of his life as Israelis head to the polls – to stay in office and out of jail” is the subtitle of a U.K. Telegraph piece by Henry Bodkin, the Telegraph’s Jerusalem correspondent. A Wall Street Journal story takes a more eirenic approach: “Netanyahu and His Main Opponent Disagree on Many Things—but Not Israel’s Security.” Thousands of Israeli expats have flown to Israel to cast their votes.
A report in the Washington Post suggests that, with President Trump’s backing, Netanyahu could lose the election and remain leader of a divided Israel. Israeli national security expert Dan Schueftan, who has advised every Prime Minister since Menachem Begin, tells Free Expression, “Israel is the only place in the world today where a free society has a young generation that’s willing to fight for freedom.”
Closer to home, Barack Obama is campaigning for Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El Sayed. The former President is also dispensing helpful tips on upper-class tastes (“Obama Goes Socialist, Scorns Cheesecake“):
President Obama has delivered another condescending classic. Campaigning for Democrats in Ohio this weekend, he said that President Trump’s redecorations have the White House “looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.” The same day, Mr. Obama endorsed a socialist as Florida’s next U.S. Senator.
Making fun of chain restaurants is quite an angle for Democrats, who keep insisting that they haven’t forgotten the working man in Middle America. The Cheesecake Factory has a couple of hundred locations, the company says, so it must be doing something deliciously right. But to all of those diners in Cleveland, Grand Rapids, and beyond, here’s Mr. Obama’s message: How déclassé.
“Yes, We Have No Bananas.” That’s the Atlantic headline on David Frum’s piece about the political ad that blames Jews for the high price of food. The subhead is “Please don’t blame the Jews.” Frum quotes the ad:
Maybe you’ve seen the ad: A man and a woman are loading a shopping cart. The woman tells the man he must return a carton of eggs. “We have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.”
The woman explains that grocery prices are rising because the United States gives so much aid to Israel. “It’s costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza,” the woman explains. “Don’t they get universal health care too?” the man asks. “We’re paying for that, too, probably,” the woman responds, at which point the man puts back the bananas.
As Frum points out, the ad was produced by an independent PAC supporting Abdul El-Sayed. Frum takes note of El-Sayed’s denunciations of “supporters of Israel” during the campaign and says that the PAC “is reviving it for him only a week before the general election.” I can’t tell you more because the ad is behind the Atlantic’s paywall. From a New York Post story by Leil Leibovitz, I gather the ad was produced by Cenk Uygur, which gives El-Sayed deniability. Leibovitz calls the ad “unapologetically Nazi drivel blaming Jews for everything bad.”
Is New York’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani the bulwark against a blue wave? “Blue states like New York might dash Democrats’ Blue Wave dreams” is the headline over an Isaac Schorr story in the New York Post:
It’s not just a pipe dream.
The paradox is this: Nationally, polls show voters are dissatisfied with the ever-increasing cost of living, tired of President Donald Trump’s act and ready to punish the GOP.
But in places where unified Democratic control of state government has proven disastrous, there’s a lot less optimism about what Democrats would really do with still more power.
Is the grass really greener on the other side? Their lives are proof to the contrary.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned … I prayed with Donald Trump. Milwaukee archbishop Jeffrey Grob, who prayed with Trump. apologizes, says bishops were “manipulated.” Don’t ya hate it when you get manipulated into praying?
More Midterm-related Stuff. “Bernie Sanders could soon get a powerful perch to help shape 2028” is a Politico headline. Iran looms over the midterms. Brookings (!) foreign policy authority Michael O’Hanlon pens an encouraging WSJ op-ed (“Slow and Steady Can Defeat Iran”). Crime update: “Trump’s Deportations Are Making America Safer,” by Jarrett Stepman:
The restoration of law and order in America is happening in large part because of President Donald Trump, in particular, his insistence that immigration laws be enforced and criminal illegal aliens be deported.
The administration should double and triple down on this message. America’s return to normalcy is contingent on making border security and deportations a top priority.
This much is undeniable: Trump’s deportations and focus on border security have run alongside a remarkable national drop in crime. To dismiss this as a mere coincidence is as absurd as when we were told there was no crime surge following the George Floyd riots and police defunding in 2020 and the explosion of border crossings during the Joe Biden presidency.
“Georgia Governor Race: It’s Murder When Keisha Lance Bottoms Is in Charge.” Ms. Bottoms, a Democrat, is running for Governor against Republican Rick Jackson. This story from Restoration News cites interesting crime stats from Bottoms’ tenure as Mayor of Atlanta.
If you thought the transgender movement had peaked, think again. “Drastic Rise in Transgender-Related Diagnoses Among Washington Youth” is a City Journal article by the invaluable Leor Sapir. Sapir uses a Manhattan Institute data analysis that shows a high number of children and teens, particularly girls, receiving transgender-related diagnoses in the state from 2017 to 2023:
Having better data on the prevalence of transgender-related diagnoses among youth is especially important because diagnosis opens the door to medical interventions—puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries—with potentially irreversible, lifelong consequences. Systematic reviews of evidence—the gold standard in evidence-based medicine—have found a lack of credible proof for benefits from puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and the most common surgery, mastectomy.
Ms. Must’s Soapbox: I’ve had a bee in my bonnet about AOC’s giddy remark on why she supports trans-identifying biological males in women’s sports. She said it was because she is a “girl’s girl.” What does that even mean? It’s a nonsense answer worthy of Kamala Harris. But it hasn’t stopped AOC from prepping for 2028.
Halloween-appropriate. In “What Haunted George Orwell” at Free Expression, John J. Miller recounts that the English author “may have seen a ghost—and never fully gave up on the possibility of the transcendent.” Miller writes:
The strange encounter took place late on a summer day in a cemetery. Orwell’s description of it survives in a single letter. “I want to get it on paper before I forget the details,” he wrote in 1931 to a friend, Dennis Collings….
Although Orwell is often described as an atheist, he may have had a faith that flickered but never quite went out. Orwell observed in 1944 that “the belief in life after death” is in decline. “Its disappearance has left a big hole,” he added. Mankind “is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.” The trouble is that the alternatives to religion disappoint.
Speaking of belief, Bill McGurn has a great column in which he argues that one reason for the French riots is that the French no longer have religious beliefs. “It fancies itself the model of modernity yet is descending into atavistic violence,” argues McGurn.
Why We Love Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent: Don’t miss Bessent leaving a Cheesecake Factory, where he admits to having enjoyed the French dip cheeseburger, his favorite.
The man can’t be bullied! He has choice remarks about the aesthetics of Obama’s library.
