For the Midterms, Democrats Hate President Trump’s Stunning Record! - Joan Swirsky

 

by Joan Swirsky

Unless Democrats succeed in rigging the upcoming midterm elections, Americans will continue to benefit and prosper from the POTUS’s heroic vision.

 

In the 1960s, I started out as a liberal because all those fuzzy feelings that leftist doctrine aroused in me “felt” virtuous and empathic and in sync with my desire to be a good person.

But I was pretty quickly disabused of those sentiments as I got a real-life taste of what liberalism was all about, which I wrote about here.

What replaced those fuzzy feelings was an attraction to facts, those pesky things that can be proven by objective and empirical examination.  In fact, it was facts that motivated me to enter nursing school when I was 27, after my three children were in school.

For instance, if I, as a nurse, inject medication into a patient’s IV, there is a right dose, and there is a wrong dose.  The first can cure you; the other can kill you.  That’s a fact!

The Same Thing with Politics

I’ve asked countless people a simple question: What have Democrats ever done to help or improve America?  Interestingly, the only answer I ever got is Social Security!  People have to go back more than 80–90 years to come up with that answer.

But it’s not completely accurate.  There is also the Marshall Plan after World War 2, the Peace Corps, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, unemployment benefits, and other socialist programs like Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and a few others.

Although Democrats predictably had a collective nervous breakdown when President Trump changed the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, they seemed to forget about their own fetish for changing names when Democrat presidents, senators, and members of Congress changed the following:

Can’t make it up!

The Democrat Midterm Lies

Now that the midterms are tomorrow, and the psychotic Trump Derangement Syndrome has not even remotely abated, and the avalanche of lawfare and consistently biased and bad press is still going, it’s time for — you guessed it — some cold, hard, as well as amazing and encouraging facts!   

According to British author and political commentator Daniel Jupp, on his daily Substack commentary, Jupplandia, “as the US gets closer and closer to the midterms, Republican success or failure depends on whether the American people subscribe to a myth.  That myth is the idea that the US has declined under Trump.” 

Jupp and others cite the whining about high food and gas prices.  Here is a succinct graphic that I found on Facebook:

 

CEO of Martin Capital Rod D. Martin made a comprehensive inventory of President Trump’s 25 major accomplishments in only the past two years — “not a list of promises [but] of laws enacted, poverty reduced, cases won, policies implemented, agreements secured, and measurable results,” Mr. Martin writes.  Here is the short sample of his findings:

1. Poverty hit its lowest rate in history, while real household income reached its all-time high.

In Trump’s first year back, America’s poverty rate fell to 10.2 percent — the lowest rate ever recorded.  Real (inflation-adjusted) median household income reached $87,460, its highest ever.  And child poverty fell to a historic low as well.

2. Trump restored American safety and Sovereignty. He made the border a real border again and reversed mass migration.  The Border Patrol has now recorded 17 consecutive months without releasing a single apprehended illegal alien into the United States, and America recorded negative net migration in 2025 for the first time in at least half a century.  Nearly 3 million illegal aliens have left the country, whether voluntarily or involuntarily — more than 675,000 forcibly deported and the rest “self-deported.”

3. He signed the Laken Riley Act — and required detention of criminal illegal aliens.  Named for an innocent girl murdered by an illegal alien, the Laken Riley Act requires federal authorities to detain illegals arrested for theft, burglary, shoplifting, assaulting police, or any crime causing death or serious injury.  It also allows states to sue officials who refuse to enforce it.  Laken Riley should still be alive.  This law will prevent tragedies like hers.

4. History’s biggest drop in violent crime, lowest rate in 126 years.  According to FBI data, violent crime in America dropped an incredible 9.7 percent in 2025 — the largest one-year decline in history.  Murder fell 18.1 percent; robbery fell 18.5 percent.  And America’s violent crime rate is its lowest since 1900.  And...since Trump took office, the FBI has captured all ten of its Top 10 Most Wanted — a first in the bureau’s history.

5. Trump made the 2017 tax cuts permanent...and better. The One Big Beautiful Bill locked in the largest tax cut in modern history, including the doubled standard deduction, the expanded Child Tax Credit, and 100 percent expensing for factories and equipment.  It also delivered No Tax on Tips, No Tax on Overtime, an abolition of most taxes on Social Security benefits, and major relief for seniors.

“Every Democrat voted no,” Martin reports.  “With the 2017 act set to expire in December 2025, that would have resulted in the largest tax hike in American history.”

Martin goes on to elaborate on the president’s

• shifting global energy dominance from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of America;
• shutting down the leftwing slush fund known as USAID;
• getting men out of women’s sports;
• opening investment accounts for nearly 70 million American children;
• enacting our country’s first nationwide school-choice program;
• targeting anti-Christian bias;
• forcing NATO to stop freeloading;
• brokering eight peace deals in just eight months; and
• launching the first-ever true missile defense system, the Golden Dome, in U.S. history.

You can read in-depth descriptions of these astounding achievements at the link above.

Could This List Be Longer?

Apparently, a lot of people like facts!  Writing for the Gatestone Institute, Majid Rafizadeh enumerates yet more of President Trump’s unprecedented initiatives, including

• rescuing the Panama Canal from China,
• liberating Venezuela,
• securing Greenland to protect the western hemisphere, and
• his ongoing commitment to ensure that the Islamic Republic of Iran will never possess a nuclear weapon.

“President Trump, unlike seven other presidents,” Mr. Rafizadeh reports, “did not just talk — he acted.  Through ... sustained economic pressure, military operations and a refusal to accept the regime’s usual stalling, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure has been significantly degraded, with the possibility of more on the way.”

Considering that Iran has recently boasted that its ballistic missiles can reach the Big Satan, the United States of America, Mr. Rafizadeh’s reassurance goes a long way.  “Trump has been neutralizing a potentially nuclear-armed, revolutionary Iran; trying to strengthen the Israel-Arab alignment; and sidelining Iran’s terrorist proxies.  These accomplishments in just two years represent a triumph in rolling back a nearly half-century threat not only to regional stability but also — through oil and geographic realignment — weakening Russia and China, reclaiming Western interests, and rescuing the survival of the Free World.”

Here, author Victoria Manning not only reminds us that “Trump delivers on his promises,” but both affirms and adds to President Trump’s list of achievements.

And here, the warrior queen of conservative politics, Pamela Geller, provides an even more extensive list of President Trump’s staggering accomplishments for the American people.

This is not to omit that in Washington, D.C. under President Trump’s leadership, crews have fixed all 48 monuments, restored 22 fountains, and eliminated over 1,000 graffiti sites across the city.

In addition, for the first time in history, the president has signed an Executive Order creating a Women’s Health Division within the National Institutes of Health, an initiative the president credited the first lady with conceiving, and to which she added her signature.

Yet the Hysteria Lives On!

In spite of these provable, documented, astounding achievements — based on irrefutable, empirical facts — the caring people of the left are not only unmoved, but in full hysteric mode.  And in spite of lionizing and curtseying to and drooling over England’s King Charles on his recent visit to America, they are busy organizing their silly No Kings protests around the country.  

But their maniacal and clinically irrational hatred of all things Trump and their ongoing abject failure to produce any policies or action plans or even philosophies to counter his juggernaut of all things good and great for America are not worthy of even one single vote in the midterms.

Unless Democrats succeed in rigging the upcoming midterm election, as they did in 2020, which I wrote about here, Americans will continue to benefit and prosper from the current POTUS’s heroic energy and Make America Great Again (MAGA) vision.

If not, we will be the next country in line for what we are all witnessing as sophisticated, once-westernized Europe continues to collapse and will inevitably fall, end, disappear from history.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0. 

Joan Swirsky

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/10/for-the-midterms-democrats-hate-president-trump-s-stunning-record/

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Trump-Netanyahu team suited to removing Iran’s regime, Netanyahu adviser tells ‘Post’ - Jerusalem Post Staff

 

by Jerusalem Post Staff

Netanyahu’s foreign policy adviser urged voters to weigh the partnership with Trump, arguing that it could help remove Iran’s leadership and expand regional peace.

 

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a press conference after meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, US, December 29, 2025.

(photo credit: REUTERS/JONATHAN ERNST)

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s foreign policy adviser, Ophir Falk, called for the removal of Iran’s regime and said Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump were suited to achieving it, in written remarks to The Jerusalem Post ahead of Tuesday’s Israeli election.

“Removing the genocidal Ayatollah regime in Iran is in the best interests of America, Israel, and civilization,” Falk said. “The Trump-Netanyahu team has shown to be suited to do so.”

Falk argued that the decisive question for voters was who would lead Israel during the final two years of Trump’s presidency.

“Who will best cooperate and coordinate with the President to finish the job in Iran and expand peace in the region?” he asked.

Trump renewed his endorsement of Netanyahu on Sunday evening, urging Israelis to back him in the October 27 vote.

An election campaign poster featuring Israeli Prime Minister and Likud party chairman Benjamin Netanyahu alongside US President Donald Trump is displayed on the back of a bus in Jerusalem, ahead of Israel’s upcoming general elections, October 25, 2026. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

“Vote for Bibi Netanyahu for Prime Minister; we have to finish the job that we started!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Falk contrasted that support with what he said were the preferences of Israel’s adversaries.

“Trump wants to work with Netanyahu,” he said. “At the same time, Israel’s enemies – Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and, of course, Iran - want Netanyahu to lose.”

“Israel and the American-Israeli alliance have never been stronger, and Iran and its proxies have never been weaker,” he added.

Israel 'very close' to creating regime change conditions in Iran

In an October 15 interview with the Post, Falk said Israel was “very close” to creating conditions for regime change, while stressing that Iranians would have to determine their country’s future.

“Regime change in Iran is up to the Iranian people,” he said in that interview.

His written remarks ahead of the election did not specify how the US and Israel should pursue the regime’s removal or provide a timetable.

Jerusalem Post Staff

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-election-2026/article-912875

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US ready to strike Iran 'within 96 hours' of Trump's order, Israel pushes for joint attack - report - Tzvi Jasper

 

by Tzvi Jasper

While Trump has not made a final decision on whether to commit to major military action after the US midterms, officials said any attack that would be conducted would "be a big effort."

 

President Donald Trump mimics firing a gun during a news conference in the White House briefing room about the war in Iran on Monday, April 6, 2026.

(photo credit: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/JTA)

 

US forces are prepared to launch a major attack against Iran "within 96 hours" of receiving the order from US President Donald Trump, two US officials told CNN on Sunday.

While Trump has not made a final decision on whether to commit to major military action after the US midterms, officials said any attack that would be conducted would "be a big effort," going beyond prior US strikes against Iranian assets that can be quickly rebuilt, such as missile launchers and radars.

One source briefed on the matter told CNN that Israel had been preparing for possibly striking Iran, as well as lobbying the US to participate in the strikes.

However, US officials, including Trump, told Israel to hold off on attacking, likely until after the midterm elections.

“The plans are ready, waiting for Trump’s approval, could be after the midterms,” the source said.

A Houthi protester with a poster of Ali Khamenei demonstrates amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Sanaa, Yemen, March 6, 2026 (credit: REUTERS/KHALED ABDULLAH)

Iran, Houthis unlikely to preemptively strike, but ready for retaliation

Two other sources told CNN that both Iran and the Houthis were taking the possibility of renewed US attacks very seriously, according to US intelligence.

Any attack launched by the US - or Israel - would trigger immediate retaliation against US personnel and facilities in the Middle East, the sources added, which is one of the reasons the US is expected to withdraw more personnel from its embassies in the region.

However, one source familiar with US intelligence assessments said that officials believe that both Iran and the Houthis were unlikely to preemptively strike US or Israeli infrastructure at this stage.

The White House declined to comment, while a senior Pentagon official told CNN that “The Department is a planning organization, and its job is to develop and execute military options ordered by the President.” 

Tzvi Jasper

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-912872

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Thanks Again, Obama - Stephen Soukup

 

by Stephen Soukup

Without Obama, Trump would never have become president, and that’s true both literally and figuratively.

 

Over the weekend, Barack Obama appeared at a campaign rally for Democrats in Ohio and managed to make some headlines by ridiculing President Trump’s design skills. “He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” the former president quipped. The crowd, of course, loved it. The media did too. Republicans responded with some mockery of their own, pointing out that Obama has little room to talk about design preferences, given the architectural monstrosity that is his presidential library in Chicago. All things considered, Obama accomplished what he set out to do: he made himself the center of attention, which is the only place, apparently, that he feels comfortable.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Obama? The guy who left office ten years ago? Why is this multi-deci-millionaire running around the country trying to get socialists and socialist-adjacent candidates (including Abdul El-Sayed) elected to high office? Shouldn’t he be off enjoying his oceanfront mansion on Martha’s Vineyard or his other oceanfront mansion on Oahu? Or playing basketball on the NBA regulation-size court at the aforementioned “library”? Isn’t that what most ex-presidents are doing a decade after their terms ended, enjoying retirement?

Well… yes, but Obama hasn’t been gone ten years yet. Technically, it’s only been nine years, nine months, and six days (not that anyone’s counting). More to the point, as I say, Obama can’t stand not being the center of attention. He and Michelle just celebrated their 34^th wedding anniversary, and because of his ongoing obsession with politics and being in the spotlight, they might not make it to 35. As the former president himself admitted this past spring, his political fixation “does create a genuine tension in our household, and it frustrates [Michelle].” Still, that’s what he does. That’s all he does. Because he can’t help himself. As Obama also noted last spring, “no other ex-president was the main surrogate for the party for four election cycles after they left office.” Maybe there’s a reason for that?

Nevertheless, Republicans should be grateful.

Now, when I say that, I say it as someone who has never been especially good at hiding his frustration with Obama. As I’ve noted before, I believe quite firmly that much of the toxic nature of our politics today is the result of Obama’s presidency, his governing style, and his pretense to intellectual and moral superiority over everyone he has met or will meet. As I put it in these pages just over a year ago:

[I]n 2008, with the advent of the “Hope and Change” era, Americans were given implicit permission to hate one another for their differing “values” and to see one another exclusively as friends or enemies in accordance with those values. Rather than approach his election as the enormous racial accomplishment it was, the essential redemption of the nation’s long and sordid racial history, Obama chose to scold those unlike him and to turn them into the sociological “other.” He told his supporters to “fight” their political opponents…and to “punch back twice as hard” when confronted by opponents who resisted their proclamations of moral superiority. He and his administration demanded that supporters turn family gatherings into policy debates/arguments. He mocked his adversaries mercilessly and encouraged his “team” to laugh at them and see them as “lesser than.” In short, Obama took the political and cultural degeneration of the previous two centuries and made the acknowledgement and application of that “ruin” socially acceptable, if not socially mandatory.

In other words, I wouldn’t mind a whole lot if he decided to become a beach bum and demanded that taxpayers foot the bill for his Secret Service detail to take surfing lessons, as long as it meant that he’d never set foot on a political stage again. As he demonstrated with his “Cheesecake Factory” put-down, the guy is a sanctimonious oikophobe, unrivaled in his self-promotion and detestation of the canaille even among this nation’s unusually supercilious ruling class.

But then, that’s kind of the point—and the specific reason Republicans should be grateful to him.

In this context, it’s important to remember that Barack Obama was, in many ways, Donald Trump’s creator—or at least President Donald Trump’s creator. Without Obama, Trump would never have become president, and that’s true both literally and figuratively.

Recall that on April 30, 2011, Obama gave his most famous—and costliest—speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, in which he mocked Trump to his face for five full minutes. He mocked Trump’s fixation on his birth certificate, mocked his leadership skills, and mocked his stint as the host of a reality show. He did so to uproarious laughter from the crowd, or at least most of it. As legend has it, that was (literally) the day Trump decided he would run for president, the day he decided to undo as much as he could of Obama’s legacy.

For Obama, that should have been a date that would live in infamy (to coin a phrase), a day the mistakes of which he would never want to repeat. And yet… As the Captain in Cool Hand Luke memorably noted, “some men you just can’t reach.”

As for the figurative part, this has two components. First, by November 2016, the electorate as a whole was tired of being hectored and chided by their leaders. Very, very tired. They were tired of being told they were racist and sexist and “deplorable.” Trump swooped in and told them he thought they were great and that he would make their country great again. It’s not clear whether the American people believed that he could make the country great again, but they wanted to believe him, and that was enough. After eight years, they wanted something different, something less disdainful of them and their dreams. They knew—by her own words—that Hillary Clinton also thought they were deplorable, and so they voted for a different type of Hope and Change.

Second, Republicans specifically were exhausted by their party’s mainstream, which spent the eight years of the Obama presidency largely giving him what he wanted or, at most, fighting back weakly and ineffectively. They saw Obama drag his Republican opponents mercilessly, and they wanted someone who would do the same for them. They despised the establishment for a host of reasons, all exacerbated by Obama. The following passage from an op-ed published in February 2016 gives just a taste of what the Republican base was looking for in 2016 and what it saw in Trump. This passage doesn’t address Obama directly, but it does show how angry the base was with the establishment and how Trump tapped into that anger:

The presidential debate that evening pitted Trump against nearly a dozen would-be nominees, with donor favorite Jeb Bush taking a prominent position on stage. Though I hadn’t chosen a candidate, I liked Bush: a conservative problem solver, a good governor, and a man of first-class intellect. I had even briefly considered working for the former Florida governor. But during an exchange about former president George W. Bush, Jeb said something that made me want to scream: “As it relates to my brother, there’s one thing I know for sure: He kept us safe.”

My anger sprang, not from a difference over policy, but from somewhere more primal. I wanted, as Walt Whitman might say, to sound my “barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.” Whatever I thought about Jeb’s education plan or record as governor, he had touched a raw cultural nerve. His defense of his brother ignored and insulted the experiences of people like me, and he was proud of it.

In an instant, I became Trump’s biggest fan. I wanted him to go for the jugular. I wanted him to inquire whom, precisely, George W. Bush had kept safe.

The author of that op-ed was, of course, JD Vance, then a principal at Mithril Capital. Vance was not a Trump fan at the time and, in fact, was a critic. Still, he saw in the future president (and his future boss) the willingness to touch previously untouchable subjects and take previously untakable positions.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that Obama begat Trump. Weirdly, Obama has never forgiven Trump for that, and so he keeps at it, trying to undo the damage he did. This is good news for Republicans—at a moment when they desperately need good news. With midterm elections looming in just over a week, President Trump’s ratings cratering, and most polls (even those that aren’t fakes) showing a building Democratic wave, perhaps the only man who can save the GOP now is Barack Obama. By reminding Republican voters why they voted for Trump in the first place and what, exactly, is at stake, Obama may be able to pull off a miracle, just not the one he’s hoping for. Obama has really never had any midterm coattails. He did help get Joe Biden elected, one supposes, but that’s probably not something about which he really should want to brag. He thinks he’s out on the campaign trail riling up the Democratic base—and he may be—but he may also be riling up the Republican base. 

Stephen Soukup

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/10/26/thanks-again-obama/

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Do Americans support Israeli democracy? Then let their voters decide - Jonathan S. Tobin

 

by Jonathan S. Tobin

While Trump backed Netanyahu, Democrats and the foreign-policy establishment still want to dictate to the Jewish state. They should accept the Israelis’ decision.

 

People participate in a street poll ahead of Israel’s upcoming general elections at the Machane Yehuda open-air market in Jerusalem, Oct. 20, 2026. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.

With the U.S. midterm elections following only a week after Israel holds its election for a new Knesset, most Americans aren’t paying much attention to the contest in the Jewish state. But even if the battle for Congress wasn’t diverting them from it, the vast majority of Americans don’t pay much attention to foreign elections or anything that happens outside of their borders that doesn’t directly affect their lives.

For the relatively small minority who do care, the focus is not so much on rooting for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the coalition of “anybody-but-Bibi” parties that are desperate to defeat him, as it is on having their way with Jerusalem.

American diktats

That’s something that the coverage of the issue of American endorsements of Netanyahu or the opposition misses. Whether discussing Trump’s enthusiastic endorsement of the prime minister, Vice President JD Vance’s emphatic non-endorsement of the Israeli leader or the tsunami of bile hurled at Netanyahu from most Democrats and the foreign-policy establishment who have been hoping to bury him for decades, the real point of these positions is often lost.

While Trump has generally allowed the Israelis more leeway than his predecessors, all of those commenting on Israeli politics from America are, as a rule, disinclined to let the Israeli people decide their own fate. What they want is an Israeli leader who will comply with the policies they want to impose on the Middle East.

As we await the verdict of the voters of Israel and then, a week later, those of their American counterparts, maybe those eager to impose their will on the Jewish state should take a step back and simply respect the right of the Israelis to choose their own government. Just as important, they should give equal respect to the right of that government to obey the will of its voters and conduct its policies in a manner to ensure their security.

Instead, many Americans remain eager to impose their fantasies about a two-state solution the Palestinian Arabs have never wanted. That would raise the possibility of a repeat of the horrors of the Hamas-led Palestinian terror attacks on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, on the rest of the country.

Democrats threaten the alliance

Some aren’t even bothering to hide their lack of interest in Israeli democracy. Senior members of the Democratic House and Senate caucuses have already made clear their plans if they win control of Congress in the midterms. They’re ready to impose sanctions on Israel, cut off arms, and, in general, downgrade the alliance with the Jewish state.

In an op-ed in The New York Times, Jon Finer, the deputy national security adviser under President Joe Biden, was blunt about the direction that Democrats would take in the coming years. While he thinks opposition leader Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, a retired chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, would be marginally better than Netanyahu, he rightly points out that no conceivable Israeli government would be willing to yield to the American left’s diktats about territorial withdrawal and the empowerment of Palestinian forces bent on the Jewish state’s destruction.

Finer isn’t much interested in Israeli democracy. He just wants an Israeli government that will do as it’s told.

That’s important to remember when you think of all the Democrats, liberal think-tank scholars and pundits who spent the months before Oct. 7 weighing in on Netanyahu’s efforts to reform Israel’s out-of-control judicial system. At that time, they were all for Israeli democracy.

That was made easier by the way the Israeli government’s domestic political opponents had picked up on the Democrats’ 2022 midterms “democracy” talking point. Like their attempt to depict Republicans as authoritarians bent on destroying democracy, they smeared Netanyahu in the same manner. That was made even more ironic by the fact that the issue on which this battle was joined was the prime minister’s efforts to stop the Israeli Supreme Court from essentially invalidating democratic rule to preserve the country’s traditional liberal elites’ hold on power that they lost at the ballot box.

Without a trace of irony and drenched in hypocrisy, American opponents of Netanyahu called for granting the Israeli judiciary powers that they would have fought to the death to oppose if anyone had suggested giving them to the U.S. Supreme Court. In both countries, it’s fair to say that the political left largely defines democracy as being whatever allows their side to rule, while opponents are made to fall into line.

Few actually cared about Israeli constitutional issues. They were just eager to assist Netanyahu’s foes because they wanted him replaced by someone willing to resume efforts toward Palestinian statehood. Once Hamas launched a war on Oct. 7, the debate on judicial reform was put aside as the Israeli nation pulled together to fight a genocidal foe. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s U.S. opponents concentrated their criticism on efforts to hamstring Israel’s war effort or on spreading blood libels against the Jewish state.

Competing visions

Still, a difference exists between foreign-policy establishment types like Finer and the intersectional left wing of the Democratic Party, which appears to be holding the whip hand over it these days. What’s left of the party’s establishment is still talking about reining in Israel, while retaining a downgraded alliance. The progressive caucus and the growing ranks of the “Squad” in the U.S. House of Representatives—or those hoping to join it, like Michigan senatorial aspirant Dr. Abdul El-Sayed—disagree. They aren’t so much interested in a compliant Israeli government as they are in aiding the effort to have no Israel at all.

The seeming split between Trump and Vance also betrays competing visions for the relationship with the Jewish state among Republicans.

Trump expects Netanyahu or whoever succeeds him not to oppose Washington’s diplomatic initiatives and will bluster at Jerusalem when it hesitates to do so. But he values Israel as a strategic partner that can defend itself. Trump also recognizes that as America’s Western European allies go into a steep decline while distancing themselves from the common fight against Islamist enemies like the regime in Iran, Israel has become a unique asset. It’s the only U.S. ally willing to pitch in and effectively fight alongside America, as well as being an irreplaceable source of intelligence-sharing, technological innovation, and cooperation when it comes to security and defense.

Though not personally an antisemite like his close friend, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Vice President JD Vance is, at best, less enthusiastic about the alliance. His isolationist tendencies put him closer to the Democrats when it comes to dealing with enemies of America like Iran. And like them, should he become president, Israelis should expect more tension between Washington and Jerusalem on a host of issues. And the fact that he is unwilling to ditch Carlson, a purveyor of antisemitic conspiracy theories as well as an avid opponent of the U.S.-Israel relationship, from his inner circle, bodes ill for both Israel and American Jews.

That means that if Vance or any of the Democrats likely to run in 2028—whether hardline left-wingers or supposed moderates—are elected, relations with Israel may become even frostier than they were a decade ago under former President Barack Obama, when more “daylight” between the two allies was his objective.

End the military aid

Although the alliance is of immense value to Washington and the annual military aid package is almost all spent in the United States—making it in effect as much aid to American arms manufacturers as to Israel—it is increasingly a political liability for the Jewish state. It gives both Democratic and Republican critics a way to falsely depict Israel as a drain on American resources as well as a source of leverage that undermines Israeli security.

That puts Israelis, both in the Netanyahu and anti-Netanyahu camps, on notice that they need to become less reliant on U.S. military aid and better able to produce more of the arms and weapons they need to fight off Iran and its terror proxies.

Complete independence is impossible. Israel is never going to be able to manufacture everything it needs to defend itself. And no other power shares its common values and is therefore sympathetic to the country or able to help. Still, the next Israeli government and those that follow it need to make good on Netanyahu’s past promises to end the flow of military aid from the United States as soon as possible.

Nevertheless, no matter who prevails in 2026 or 2028, Americans need to respect the verdict of Israel’s voters. They don’t have to like Netanyahu, Eisenkot or anyone who might become prime minister. But they do need to stop falling prey to the notion that Washington’s role is to give orders to Jerusalem against its interests or to help those Israelis who can’t win an election there.

The two countries aren’t always going to agree. As much as they currently are and should be aligned in most respects, their national interests are not identical. Sometimes, as has frequently happened in recent decades, Israel’s government must act to defend its people when it might serve America’s interests to avoid any conflict, even if that strengthens bad actors like Iran. It’s also true that politicians like Trump or Vance know the American people don’t like wars or the higher gas prices they can cause.

The United States is the senior partner in the alliance and due some deference. Yet the notion that Americans are a better judge of Israeli national interests than the Israelis—the conceit of U.S. Middle East policy under almost all administrations not led by Trump—is simply wrong. Unlike most Americans, the Israeli people have been paying attention to events in their region over the course of the last three decades since the Oslo peace process became the centerpiece of Clinton administration policy. And, unlike the Democrats and Vance, they are aware that the Palestinians and Iran don’t want peace; they want Israel’s destruction.

No conceivable Israeli government will ever go along with a withdrawal from Judea and Samaria or from parts of Jerusalem. And no American government will ever have the power to persuade their leaders otherwise. The better part of wisdom for any administration is to listen to the Israeli people and treat their choices—whether they keep Netanyahu in power or not—as something they do not have the right or the power to overturn.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily” program, available on major audio platforms and YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won 60-plus awards for his columns, commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.

Source: https://www.jns.org/opinion/column/jonathan-s-tobin/do-americans-support-israeli-democracy-then-let-their-voters-decide

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Mrs. Elmi’s bad week - J. R. Dunn

 

by J. R. Dunn

Exhibit A in the case against Ilhan Omar has been revealed.

 

Exhibit A in the case against Ilhan Omar has been revealed. It turns out, as many of us have long suspected, that her name isn’t “Omar” at all. It’s not even anything similar. It’s Ilhan Nur Said Elmi. This is almost identical to that of the brother she is accused of marrying, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. And vaguely resembles that of her sister, Sahra Noor.

All this came to light due to a filing made at the D.C. District Court by federal prosecutors this past Wednesday, who named her as “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi AKA Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.” (That “AKA” is a nice touch, putting her on the same level as Mob enforcers or dope smugglers.)

“Elmi” was apparently her father’s real name. The forms he used included Nur Said and Nur Said Elmi Mohamed. “Omar” appears to have been snatched out of the air as he was fleeing Somalia. He arrived in the U.S. claiming to be a “teacher trainer” named Nur Omar Mohamed. The switch was made to hide his identity as a colonel in the Somalian military, alleged to have carried out war crimes under the dictatorship of Siad Barre.

Claiming American citizenship using a false identity is a serious offense. Actually, we should say “offenses,” since it falls under a number of statutes. These include Naturalization Fraud: “Knowingly procuring or attempting to procure U.S. citizenship illegally” (18 U.S.C. § 1425), which is punishable by ten to twenty-five years in prison or fines of up to $250,000. Misuse of Names/Impersonation: “Knowingly and unlawfully using a fictitious name, or impersonating someone else during naturalization proceedings” (18 U.S.C. § 1424) will get you up to five years. False Statements Under Oath: “Making false statements regarding identity or citizenship on official applications” (18 U.S.C.§ 1015) will get you another five years.

That’s just the beginning. Because the feds will also initiate proceedings to revoke the offender’s citizenship, deport her from the country, and bar her permanently from entry into the United States.

Furthermore, there is no possibility of a legal waiver: the honorable judges Boasberg or Reyes cannot attempt to interfere.

So it seems that Mrs. Elmi is in for it.

Yet another consequence was brought up by one interested party, that being Donald J. Trump. At a rally in Iowa on Friday, President Trump told the crowd that he was “saddened to hear” that one of his “favorite congresspeople, a person I have tremendous respect for” was being prosecuted for these crimes. After a rich description of Somalia, with particular reference to its major industry (“committing acts of piracy”) along with a brief précis of Omar’s career, the President concluded by saying, “Since Ilhan used a fake name, she must immediately resign from Congress… The Dumocrat party has just conceded the seat of the former Ilhan Omar, from the lovely country of Somalia.”

That sounds fine to me. There is one thing that Elmi can take comfort in: if this had happened in Somalia, she would have simply been shot.

 

J. R. Dunn

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/10/mrs-elmi-s-bad-week/

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Lula beats Bolsonaro in Brazil presidential election after judge extends voting by two hours - Nicholas Ballasy

 

by Nicholas Ballasy

Bolsonaro, a senator and son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, finished ahead of Lula in the Oct. 4 first round, receiving 47.03% of valid votes compared with Lula’s 45.16%.

 

Brazilian voters headed to the polls Sunday in a closely contested presidential runoff between leftist incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and right-wing challenger Flávio Bolsonaro.

Lula defeated Bolsonaro on Sunday night, securing a fourth term.

Bolsonaro, a senator and son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, finished ahead of Lula in the Oct. 4 first round, receiving 47.03% of valid votes compared with Lula’s 45.16%. 

Neither candidate secured the majority needed to win outright, forcing Sunday’s runoff. 

Voting in the country was extended by 2 hours on Sunday due to Brazilian Supreme Court justice Cristiano Zanin's order. 

Some polling sites reportedly received the news minutes before they were scheduled to cut off voting.  

Nicholas Ballasy

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/brazil-votes-high-stakes-presidential-runoff-between-lula-and-bolsonaro

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Success at border would reshape Trump's argument to finish wall at Big Bend, saving taxpayer money - Amanda Head

 

by Amanda Head

The administration's success might make the argument that the southern border wall is needed for security a sideshow. Rather, the wall could be viewed as an investment that lowers the costs of resources and border agents on patrol.

 

President Donald Trump has all but closed the southwest border, driving illegal crossings to their lowest level in Border Patrol history, and that success is reshaping the case for finishing the wall through Texas' Big Bend region. 

The argument is no longer about stopping an invasion but about saving taxpayers' money for decades, with a permanent barrier that can free up agents, shrinking the costly manpower needed to guard one of the border's most remote stretches.

This week, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to lift a federal judge’s preliminary injunction that has halted border barrier construction across the roughly 500-mile Big Bend sector in Texas, including areas near Big Bend National Park.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone had blocked the project earlier in the month after environmental groups, a river guide, and local landowners challenged DHS waivers of environmental and other laws, arguing the waivers exceeded the secretary’s authority under the major-questions doctrine because the remote region has relatively low illegal crossings. 

A decade at the border

Trump's first term opened with a sharp drop in crossings. Border officers apprehended 310,531 people in fiscal 2017, a 25% decrease from the year before, and crossings from Mexico fell to the lowest level since 1971. The lull didn't last. Apprehensions climbed to 851,508 in fiscal 2019, more than double the prior year, and the administration responded with "Remain in Mexico," under which many asylum seekers waited in Mexico while their claims were decided.

Under President Biden, the country logged more than 10.8 million encounters nationwide from fiscal 2021 through 2024, and monthly apprehensions peaked at 249,740 in December 2023.

Trump's second term reversed the trend. Apprehensions fell to 237,565 in fiscal 2025, the fewest since 1970. In fiscal 2026 they dropped to 98,708, the lowest in agency history, and September's roughly 8,900 were more than 96% below the December 2023 peak. 

CBP has completed 250 miles of new barriers since January 2025. CBP argues that the wall pays for itself in manpower: upgrades in the San Diego sector alone free up more than 150 agents every 24 hours.

The cost of illegal immigration

For wall supporters, the bigger expense has never been steel but illegal immigration itself. The Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors tighter immigration limits, estimated taxpayers paid $150.7 billion in a 2023 survey and report. 

The largest share is K-12 education at $78 billion, mostly borne by states and localities, followed by health care at about $42.7 billion. DHS has cited the group's estimate that each illegal immigrant costs taxpayers nearly $8,776 a year. 

A House Homeland Security Committee estimate put the cost of caring for those who entered since January 2021 at as much as $451 billion. With crossings now down, some analysts place potential taxpayer savings at roughly $30 billion a year, though that is an estimate rather than an established figure. According to the AP, opponents have argued that other forms of infrastructure such as drones or surveillance towers are just as effective and a lot less expensive than the wall plans.

Other researchers argue the picture is more mixed, finding that newly arrived immigrants tend to cost local governments but contribute positively at the federal level.

The Price of Finishing the Wall

Trump built about 450 miles of barriers during his first term, at an estimated $11 billion to $15 billion, much of it replacing existing barriers. Funding was pieced together from appropriations and roughly $10 billion diverted from the Pentagon and a 2019 standoff with Congress over $18 billion in wall funding led to a government shutdown.

The second-term effort has far deeper pockets. Republicans placed $46.5 billion for the project in the One Big Beautiful Bill. The White House says that money will fund an estimated 700 miles of wall plus 900 miles of river barriers. 

The first contracts under the law averaged about $20 million per mile. CBP has since obligated $34.3 billion toward Smart Wall projects. That makes the remaining work largely paid for.

Amanda Head is White House Correspondent at Just the News. You can follow her here. 

Amanda Head

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/final-stretch-border-completion-may-be-argument-investment-and-cost-saving

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Well, What Do You Know, There Is Hope for Humanity After All - Lawrence Kadish

 

by Lawrence Kadish

MIT says the challenge for AI is that "teaching a computer to use human language still requires an inhuman amount of data."

 

An MIT report finds that a child can still beat Artificial Intelligence (AI) in learning a language. (Image source: iStock/Getty Images)

An MIT report finds that a child can still beat Artificial Intelligence (AI) in learning a language.

There is hope for humanity after all.

Their analysis commented that humans have used language for at least 100,000 years and then observed, "And in all that time, there has been only one thing in the world that could learn a human language to perfect fluency: a human child."

While AI can now spit out complex math solutions in seconds, create videos of startling "reality," and pose hacking threats to our electrical grids, it still has a devil of time learning a language.

MIT says the challenge for AI is that "teaching a computer to use human language still requires an inhuman amount of data."

Experts say the divide between children and AI has been labeled "the data efficiency gap." The same experts are now trying to figure out how kids can master language while AI is still essentially mute.

MIT suggests that kids are apparently learning more with less. They note a preteen raised in a traditional home will probably hear around 100 million words. By the time they are 20, the word count is probably 300 million words. AI, on the other hand, may be exposed to a far larger number of words and yet it still can't get it right.

So they are asking, "Are we born with a language instinct... a quirk of our biology?"

But do not rest on your language laurels. It is very likely that some Silicon Valley AI employee is trying to break the code. Yet the MIT report quotes one expert, "It's just totally miraculous... If you train GPT-2 on 30 million words, you get a nonsense generator; you don't get a kid."

Perhaps it is the inherent miracle of the human mind that begins to evolve even in the womb. With all our scientific know-how, we still cannot say how babies begin to learn language. That reality, and what it represents, may be the ultimate reason why AI will be kept in check.

Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22940/hope-for-humanity

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Montreal man sues police after arrest for waving Israeli flag - Israel National News

 

by Israel National News

Montreal man seeks $86,301 in damages after being arrested while displaying an Israeli flag at a cycling race. The criminal charge was later withdrawn.

 

 

A Montreal man has filed a lawsuit against the city's police department after he was arrested while displaying an Israeli flag at an international cycling competition, alleging that officers used excessive force and provided an inaccurate account of the incident, CTV News reported.

Daniel Bercovici, 47, is seeking $86,301 in compensatory and punitive damages from the City of Montreal and four police officers in a civil action filed in Quebec Superior Court in late August.

According to the lawsuit, Bercovici attended the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal on September 14, 2025, as a spectator, hoping to cheer on the Israel-Premier Tech cycling team.

He was standing near the foot of Mount Royal holding an Israeli flag when he encountered police officers amid a demonstration opposing the Israeli team's participation in the race.

Pro-Palestinian Arab protesters had gathered at the event, accusing Israel-Premier Tech of being “complicit with the genocidal entity" and engaging in “sportswashing," a term referring to the use of sporting activities to improve an organization's public image.

Bercovici alleges that he was peacefully supporting the team when officers confronted him without justification, forced him to the ground, searched him unlawfully, and placed him under arrest.

The lawsuit accuses the officers of using “excessive force" and further alleges that demonstrators attempted to hit Bercovici with flagpoles while police escorted him away.

Three days after the incident, Bercovici was charged with obstructing a peace officer. He was subsequently arraigned on February 27, 2026.

However, the criminal proceedings took a different turn after his defense obtained video footage of the incident.

According to the civil complaint, a prosecutor reviewed a YouTube video and photographs documenting Bercovici's injuries on July 9, 2026.

On July 28, the prosecution withdrew the charge, “stating expressly that it was doing so because of the video evidence provided by the defence," the lawsuit states.

Bercovici now alleges that the officers' account of his behavior was contradicted by the footage.

Police records obtained by the plaintiff reportedly accused him of “taunts, insults, aggressive brandishing of his flag, ignored warnings and ignored orders."

The lawsuit disputes that description and claims the officers failed to make contemporaneous notes of the arrest. Instead, it alleges that their account was “written from memory, hours after the event."

The complaint goes further, accusing the officers of knowingly interfering with Bercovici's rights and subsequently inventing a justification for their actions.

“The interference with the Plaintiff’s rights was unlawful and intentional: the officers knew the Plaintiff had done nothing unlawful, intervened against him regardless, and then fabricated a justification after the fact."

None of the allegations made in the civil lawsuit have been established in court.

According to the lawsuit, Bercovici sustained injuries to his knees, abrasions, and other physical harm during the arrest.

He also claims to have experienced continuing psychological effects, including “persistent distrust of law enforcement," following the incident.

Montreal police declined to address the allegations, citing the ongoing legal proceedings.

The lawsuit comes against the backdrop of a rise in reported antisemitic incidents in Montreal following the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023.

In November 2024, a man described as Arab entered a Jewish-owned business in the city and allegedly threatened to kill its owners while shouting insults directed at Jews and Israel.

The incident followed violent disturbances during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Montreal, where protesters burned an effigy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, threw firecrackers at police, damaged storefronts, and set several vehicles ablaze.

Other incidents included the desecration of a Jewish cemetery in July 2024, when stones were arranged on graves to form a swastika.

In March, a kosher restaurant and an adjacent business were vandalized.

More recently, in July, the Montreal police hate crimes unit opened an investigation into incidents targeting Hasidic Jewish residents in the Outremont and Mile-End neighborhoods.

The Council of Hasidic Jews of Quebec reported that worshippers returning from Shabbat services had been subjected to aggressive harassment by individuals traveling in a vehicle.

The following month, a suspected overnight arson attack caused extensive damage to Nöam, a kosher restaurant in Montreal's Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough.

Israel National News

Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/435157

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