Vincent van Gogh Self-Portrait with Straw Hat 1887
🚨 WOW! In a terrifying development for Democrats, Republicans are forecast to win 215 HOUSE SEATS this November to Democrats' 206 — meaning Republicans need just 21% of the swing seats, per Inside Elections
— Pascal Najadi (USSF)🇺🇸 (@JfkPascalNajadX) October 28, 2026
Hakeem Jeffries is LIVID! pic.twitter.com/ji33eOTy8q
🇷🇺|Lavrov Makes It Clear: The War in Ukraine Will Not Stop, It Will Escalate
— Aprajita Nafs Nefes 🦋 Ancient Believer (@aprajitanefes) October 27, 2026
October 27, 2026. Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made a statement not a prediction, but a confirmation of facts already unfolding:
"The conflict in Ukraine will continue, and it is… pic.twitter.com/LqSfWAmDwI
Former US Ambassador Chas Freeman on the West's real objective in Ukraine:
— Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) October 27, 2026
“Are we interested in a future for Ukraine, or are we just interested in battering Russia? I think all the evidence suggests that it's the latter. There's no interest in Ukraine or Ukrainians.” pic.twitter.com/GnIoZRtQXu
Where would we be with more Biden and all that? Shudder!
Obama, Hillary and Joe have scared off many many people.
I seriously wonder how much of that the polls catch.
• Before You Vote, Remember That They Tried to Kill Trump for a Reason (Tim O’Brien)
Kitchen-table issues will motivate a lot of voters next week on Election Day, but they shouldn’t be your primary concern. No doubt, the high costs of gas, food, and so much else are problems looking for someone to blame. As the sitting U.S. president, Donald Trump will likely get his share of that blame, justified or not.Read more …
But as we know, at some point, hostilities in Iran, Ukraine and Russia will fade, and the cost of living will fall back in line. You can try to tell your family members who will be voting against Republicans this, and they will likely blow you off. But there is one thing everyone needs to remember: the left tried to kill Trump for a reason. They did not want him to become president for a reason.Yes, we know that the would-be assassin in Butler, Thomas Crooks, remains an enigma. Officially, he’s considered a lone actor in the story of Butler, where most of the blanks have yet to be filled, and our intelligence community doesn’t seem all that inclined to fill those blanks.
A second would-be assassin named Ryan Routh set up an armed sniper position in the tree line along the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club just two months later. This was before Election Day in 2024 while Trump was playing a round of golf. Again, no proof of ties to any organized effort to kill the Republican candidate for president at the time.
But those two incidents, when viewed in larger context, followed two attempts to impeach Trump, numerous lawsuits and a criminal case against Trump, all designed to bankrupt him, kill his political ambitions, smear him, and provide distractions from campaigning. No leftist movement has ever tried this hard to destroy one candidate at every conceivable level.
We’ve well documented the left’s efforts to destroy Trump, and yet he survived. Two underlying questions remain: What did the left fear so much? And has Trump started to do the things the left feared most?
The Trump administration secured the southern border and commenced an aggressive deportation campaign focused mostly on violent illegal aliens, but also anyone who broke the law to come to this country. He’s done a lot of other things, too. But are they the sorts of things the left feared such that it would try to take him down by any means possible?
My sense is that most of Trump s accomplishments in his second term, while they are things the Democrats opposed, are not exactly what the left feared most. I think what they feared most is only now starting to come to fruition. But it is now happening. The Trump administration is investigating and arresting people who ve long flouted justice so brazenly that frustrated conservatives have been openly calling for action. We can only assume that it took this long so that the DOJ could put strong enough legal cases together so that they would hold up in court. We now know that’s happening.
On Monday, October 26, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) charged former FBI director James Comey with leaking national security information, and conspiring to leak such information, while directing the FBI in 2016. He was charged with violating the Espionage Act, 18 U.S.C. ß/ 793(d), which criminalizes improperly sharing any document that relat[es] to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.
The next day, FBI agents raided a Beverly Hills mansion owned by Stephen Cloobeck, a billionaire resort developer and prominent Democrat donor. Reports are that the feds conducted this search as part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation into former California Democrat Congressman Eric Swalwell.
The walls may finally be closing in on another very prominent Democrat who has been at the center of controversy ever since the first day she set foot on Capitol Hill. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). My colleague Matt Margolis summed up the latest in her saga quite nicely:
A longtime Harvard Law professor and liberal lawyer believes the FBI raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) home has landed her in serious legal jeopardy, and he predicts she will very likely lose her citizenship and face deportation to Somalia, the country of her birth. That lawyer is Alan Dershowitz, and he made his prediction on Newsmax’s The Record with Greta Van Susteren.
The whole case hinges on whether Omar became a U.S. citizen, and if so, how. She claims she became a citizen as a minor when her father was naturalized. The problem is that nobody has produced the paperwork to back that up, and Van Susteren zeroed in on that gap.
Since 2025, the White House has announced a number of grand jury investigations, including one that focuses on former CIA director John Brennan and Comey. This investigation centers on the alleged weaponization of the “Russia, Russia, Russia” hoax that was built on rumors of 2016 Russian interference in U.S. elections.
And in 2026, a federal grand jury returned multiple indictments in a case centered on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), leveling charges that include conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering, and alleged concealment money laundering.
Of course, all of this may still be too slow and too narrow for a lot of conservatives, who urgently want to see a parade of leftist tyrants perp-walked. That would be what we’re starting to see right now.
If you were to ask any conservative who they’d like to see prosecuted and locked up for what they did to this country, particularly under the Biden administration, the list would likely be long and readily top of mind. It’s not far-fetched to think that in just the cases we know about, investigators are casting a wide net and will use the upcoming proceedings to get some of the investigations’ targets to blow the whistle on other, perhaps bigger fish.
So, when you look at it all in this context, it’s easier to comprehend just why the left feared a second Trump administration so much.
That’s why, when you look ahead to Election Day, remember that some of the most important things Trump could do at the moment are only now in their infancy. When you, your friends and family vote, keep in mind that the left feared Trump for a reason, and if he’s permitted to keep his focus on governing, and not battling a Democrat Congress or Senate, we may start to see the wheels of justice turn on leftists who up until now have been untouchable.
“Federal District Judge in California Will Appoint Special Master to Investigate DOJ/DHS Process Used to Identify Illegal Aliens on State Voter Rolls..”
• Special Master to Investigate DOJ/DHS Process to Identify Illegal Aliens (CTH)
Many have asked for my opinion and prediction on the upcoming midterm election. One of the reasons I have been hesitant to advance an opinion is simply because this election comes down to a fundamental question that is challenging to discuss with a wider audience. That issue surrounds “pretense” or “pretending.”
The Trump administration has been trying to advance election integrity issues that target the structural “pretending” that underpins all election fraud. The political left pretends not to know that elections are manipulated, yet for years they have advanced structural policy and lawfare to facilitate pretending. Make no mistake ‘pretending’ is a strategy -a purposeful strategy- that underpins all election manipulation.Example using motor-voter registration systems: When the option on a DMV system contains a singular checkbox that says “I am eligible to vote in federal elections” with no option to say, “I am not eligible to vote in federal elections,” the singular affirmative check box if left blank can be then coded to transfer the physical ID to the state registrar’s office under the pretending guise of benefit of doubt. The pretense is the person just forgot to check the box – plausible deniability is constructed.
A singular checkbox is an indicator of plausible pretense that constructs the federal fraud intent. An identity system with two check boxes, one saying “yes, I am” the other saying “no, I am not” eliminates the plausible doubt (pretense). Every blue state who uses the ID or License system to generate ballots use the singular check box.
The Trump administration through DHS/ICE have been targeting illegal aliens who voted in elections for deportation proceedings. This is ultimately a warning spread by word of mouth within the illegal alien community. At the same time, there have been numerous examples of illegal aliens who swear it wasn’t them who filled out the ballot; however, the voting is a criminal act, the voter registration is unlawful, and the illegal alien is deported.
The blue states are protecting their voter registration files from federal review in part because they are protecting illegal aliens who have voted and/or registered to vote. Keep in mind from the above example, the illegal alien who went to get a state ID card my not have wanted to register to vote, but the officials who construct the system register them anyway because they want to generate the ballot opportunity (potentially filled out by others).
If states use the fraudulent registration to generate ballots, and then the ballots are used in the election by political harvesters, DHS/ICE have a federal law violation against the illegal alien to ‘further’ justify the deportation. Illegal aliens are aware of this issue as a consequence of removal proceedings discussed within their community over the past year+.
Illegal aliens who do not want to appear on the DHS/ICE radar, do not vote in elections. However, that doesn’t mean a ballot wasn’t purposefully created, transmitted and filled out -with their personage as the identity- without their knowledge.
With leftists increasingly desperate to influence the election outcomes, the illegal alien ballots turn the alien into cannon fodder. The leftists don’t care what happens to the alien after the purposeful exploit of their identity has been accomplished. Illegal aliens are also very aware of this issue.
That said, the non-pretending reality of this situation rises to the surface within the issue of the Trump administration notifying the State of California of a specific list of 20,000 register voters who are unlawfully on the voter rolls. The administration has warned the state they are on notice of the fraudulent registration and if any of those names vote in the election the state and/or county officials can be held liable for violating federal election law.
The issue ended up in court where California state officials are fighting the Trump administration. Within the arguments the state officials informed the court they have no process to curate and/or cull votes once the voter registration is submitted.
According to state officials, regardless of whether the voter registration is legally compliant or not, once the voter registration takes place the state has no process to stop the voter or sequester the voter ballot from the final tally. Obviously, when you understand how the motor-voter system has been manipulated, you can understand the next level of pretending needed by the state officials in order to avoid accountability.
Instead of addressing that issue, the activist judge said yesterday he was going to appoint a “special master” to review how the DOJ developed the list of 20,000 names. Instead of holding the state officials accountable for a system of fraudulent voters, the judge is going to target the DOJ officials who identified the issue.
CALIFORNIA – […] The federal district judge overseeing the Justice Department’s lawsuit asking California to segregate roughly 20,000 ballot belonging to individuals it claims are “likely” noncitizens appeared skeptical of the DOJ’s efforts to seek emergency action just a week from the state’s election.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter said in court Tuesday he intends to appoint a special master to probe DOJ’s process that led it to compile the list of alleged 20,000 likely non-citizens, dealing a setback to the Trump administration’s attempt to quickly intervene in the election.
Judge Carter did not rule by the conclusion of the hearing on the DOJ request for a temporary restraining order against the state, though he appeared skeptical of the department’s late-stage attempt to force what he described as a “monumental change” in California’s ongoing administration of its election. (more)
It is fair to say that given the demonstrable scale of illegal voting, if unlawful registrations and illegal alien voters were removed from their ability to influence the election outcome, roughly half of the current Democrats in congress would lose their seats. That’s the scale of illegal alien voting, direct or indirect, inside the system.
[New Jersey – Pennsylvania – California examples.]
So, the question is…. For this 2026 midterm election, which pressure mechanism is stronger: (1) the threat by President Trump, DHS and ICE to deport illegal voters which may stop a significant number of illegal ballots; or (2) the severity of desperation within the leftist democrat apparatus to push illegal ballots into the harvesting machinery.All fraudulent election activity rests on a foundation of pretending. The democrats pretend not to know how the structural design of the system facilitates fraud; while the republican wing of the UniParty pretends they don’t know about the structural design of the system that facilitates fraud.
A non-pretending Trump administration has to battle both groups with the army of MAGA/INDY voters behind him.
…”a republic, if you can keep it!”
~Ben Franklin
“We’re keeping our powder dry for now.
• Trump Admin Says It Has ‘No Position’ On Orban For UN Chief (ET)
The Trump administration has said it has no position on whether former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban should become the next U.N. chief, after The Wall Street Journal reported that Washington is backing him. “The United States has no position; we will continue to evaluate any and all candidates,” a senior U.S. official told The Epoch Times by email.Read more …
“We are looking for a [secretary-general] that will implement the aggressive reform agenda that we have very publicly laid out in NYC. The UN has wastefully strayed too far from its core missions for too long.” The comments follow an Oct. 25 Wall Street Journal op-ed, which cited anonymous sources in three countries, that Trump administration officials have encouraged Orban to enter the race to succeed António Guterres, whose second five-year term ends on Dec. 31.Orban, who lost power in Hungary’s April parliamentary elections after 16 years as prime minister, has maintained close ties with U.S. President Donald Trump. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alimov told Russian news agency Interfax on Oct. 26 that Orban could still be nominated for the post, but neither the United States, China, nor Russia, as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, can do so.
“Those who are behind this initiative should probably find a state that will assume this honorable responsibility,” he said.”As soon as this happens, we will explore the possibilities for discussion and consultation. Certainly, all candidates officially nominated for the post of secretary-general are being discussed.” He told the publication, however, that this time, the position should go to a representative of the Latin American region or the Caribbean. On Oct. 21, the think tank Council on Foreign Relations identified six candidates to succeed Guterres and take office on Jan. 1, 2027.
These included International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi, former Costa Rican Vice President Rebeca Grynspan, and former Ecuadorian Foreign Minister María Fernanda Espinosa.Orban was not among the six candidates listed.
Trump criticized the United Nations in remarks delivered at the U.N. General Assembly in New York City on Sept. 22, saying the United States had helped implement sweeping reforms at the international body, including a 15 percent cut to its 2026 budget and the elimination of more than 4,000 positions from U.N. bureaucracy.
“The United Nations has great potential, I’ve said that for many years, but it must stop imposing the far-left agenda of globalist bureaucrats who nobody ever elected,” he said. “It is equally unacceptable that with all the genuine atrocities in the world, the U.N.’s top human rights officials spend their time criticizing the United States for protecting our children from transgender mutilation and transgender insanity and enforcing our immigration laws.”
Trump spoke after Guterres delivered his final address, urging world leaders to establish international safeguards for artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Guterres, whose last term ends on Dec. 31, said AI development has moved so fast that it “has blindsided even those who created it.”
In January, Trump said that his Board of Peace, which he created as part of his Gaza peace process, could end up replacing the United Nations. “I wish the United Nations could do more. I wish we didn’t need a Board of Peace, but … with all the wars I settled, the United Nations never helped me on one war,” Trump said during a White House press briefing on Jan. 20.
When a reporter asked the president whether the Board of Peace could replace the United Nations, he replied, “It might.” “The U.N. just hasn’t been very helpful. I’m a big fan of the U.N. potential, but it has never lived up to its potential,” he said.
“as President [Lula] da Silva Demands Arrest of All Political Opposition..”
• Flávio Bolsonaro and Family Have Fled Brazil (CTH)
Brazil has fallen. The 50/50 presidential election was decided by a relatively small number of votes. However, once the communist regime of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was declared the winner, 8-minutes later a notoriously corrupt Brazilian Supreme Court Justice, Alexandre de Moraes ordered Flavio Bolsonaro to turn in his passport.Read more …
The clenched fist of brutal authoritarian control is now in place. Bolsonaro is not the only target for President da Silva and Judge de Moraes as the pair are also going after any candidate who ran against the regime in the general election. Reports of regular Brazilian people’s reaction to the election are very sad. Most of the Bolsonaro supporters are now trying to stay off the radar of the openly weaponized govt regime.Political conversations have turned to whispers only with those you know, quiet nods between friends, unspoken understandings amid family members and a general disposition to become as invisible as possible so you are not targeted. In the USA, the caviar communists in Washington DC and champagne socialists in Hollywood have been gleeful since the Brazil outcome was announced.
U.S. media are reporting that Flavio Bolsonaro and his family have left Brazil, escaping through Argentina to Ecuador and then potentially to the United States – though nothing is yet openly confirmed as diplomatic risks seem to be part of the public discussion. At 9:31am ET Bolsonaro arrived in Miami.
Wall Street Journal – Bolsonaro crossed into Argentina at 10:50 p.m. local time Tuesday accompanied by his wife, Fernanda, and daughters Carolina and Luiza, Argentine authorities said early Wednesday. The family crossed into Argentina via the Tancredo Neves International Bridge in Misiones province, a remote area where the borders of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil meet.
Argentine authorities said they presented valid travel documents and faced no legal restrictions on entering the country. At 11:30 p.m., just 40 minutes later, the family boarded a private aircraft operated by Baires Fly, with Guayaquil, Ecuador, listed as its destination on the flight plan.
Flight-tracking data showed that a private jet operated by Baires Fly, the Argentine charter company whose aircraft authorities had inspected earlier Tuesday, took off from Puerto Iguazú at 12:21 a.m. with Ecuador as its final destination. (source)
Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 showed that a plane fitting the description of Bolsonaro’s landed in Guayaquil at about 4 a.m. local time, before taking off minutes later for Miami-Opa locka Executive Airport. The plane carrying Bolsonaro and his family landed in Miami at around 9:30 a.m. EST.
(Via AP) — Defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro and his family landed in Miami on Wednesday after fleeing Brazil. The stunning move came after 48 hours in which Bolsonaro refused to concede to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and then threatened to attempt to annul the election result.
Bolsonaro’s father, Jair Bolsonaro, also fled to Florida after losing the 2022 presidential election to Lula before returning to Brazil three months later. On Monday, the U.S. said that it would grant visas to Flávio Bolsonaro and his family. Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, visited the White House in May.
Bolsonaro first fled from Brazil to Argentina and then Ecuador alongside his wife and two daughters, Argentina’s migration authority said Wednesday — a day after the 45-year-old senator and his family were granted United States visas by the Trump administration.
Pic: Peace in AI.
She is a cross-asset macro strategist at Rabobank
• World Peace (Molly Schwartz)
Wall Street traders walked into the office yesterday morning to see headlines that world peace was just beyond the horizon, as Turkish, Saudi, Qatari, and Pakistani officials wrapped up meetings in Tehran to try and bring an end to the war. And so, the headlines rocked that “Iran’s Supreme Leader Calls for Meeting Conditions to End War.” Markets priced in the likelihood of the war actually ending accordingly- given that conversations about nuclear never even made it to the table- with brent crude oil one-month futures down about $2 to $114/bbl.Read more …
Only a few blocks away, the Israeli elections were in full swing, with the voter turnout nearing the highest level since 1975, as reported by the FT. Turnout was especially strong among voters in Arab-Israeli towns who “by the late afternoon had already surpassed their full vote tally for the entire 2022 election cycle.” The results, at the time of writing, appear neck and neck, but the odds are skewed in Netanyahu’s favor. Even if the Likud party fails to win a majority, and Eisenkot’s Yashur party comes into power, the likelihood of Eisenkot to create a coalition to go against the right-wing is limited.Therefore, should Eisenkot fail to achieve a coalition majority, Netanyahu remains in power until another round of elections are held in a few months. Meanwhile, Europe fails to stay unified in its dealings with Russia amidst the Russia-Ukraine war. Leaders from Finland and Norway spoke with Putin for the first time in over a year, with Finnish President Stubb calling the conversation “frank and substantive.” According to Bloomberg, a Kremlin read out of the call notes that Putin “emphasized that achieving a just and long-term peace is possible only if the legitimate interests of the Russian Federation are fully and unconditionally taken into account.”
But other countries were less-than-pleased with this unfolding of events, with leaders from Denmark and Italy criticizing the move. Frederiksen said that she “sees no signs that Russia desires peace with Europe- neither in the hybrid warfare taking place every single day, nor in Ukraine, where they are launching fierce and aggressive attacks on a daily basis.” Especially as the Danish Intelligence Agency recently published a report warning Europe about the acceleration of time and scope of Russian hybrid attacks. So, some headlines suggest world peace may be just beyond the horizon—but the view from here remains obstructed.
Talks in Tehran have produced conditions rather than an agreement, Israel’s election may reinforce the status quo, and Europe still can’t agree, even on a phone call. Are we on the verge of world peace, or a world in pieces?
Details of the law.
• No, CNN Did Not Defame Cenk Uygur by Trashing his Anti-Israel Ad (Turley)
A new ad running to support Democrat senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan has been widely denounced as anti-Semitic for suggesting that Jews are taking food from Americans. The ad is the work of Rebellion PAC, a political action committee co-founded by The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur. Uygur has now struck out at CNN over a panel discussion that trashed the segment and called it clearly defamatory. For a torts teacher, the claim popped this story to the top of my pile, and I thought it was worthy of addressing. The CNN segment is manifestly not defamatory. Whatever grievance that he may have with the network, it is not a legal one.Read more …
The ad shows a couple shopping for food when the husband grabs a dozen eggs.Wife: “Honey, you’re going to have to put those eggs back.”
Husband: “They don’t like eggs anymore?”
Wife: “No, they like eggs. But we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.”
Husband: “What? Don’t we give Israel $4 billion a year anyway?”
Wife: “Yeah, and now we’re giving them another $26 billion. It’s like $161 per person. Apparently it’s costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza.”
Husband: “It’s terrible.”
Wife: “Yeah.”
Husband: “Don’t they get universal healthcare too?”
Wife: “Yeah, they do. We’re paying for that too, probably. Might as well put the bananas back.”
The 90-second advertisement ends with “Mike Rogers is for they/them. Abdul El-Sayed is for you.”
After host Michael Smerconish presented the ad, the CNN panel expressed revulsion to the ad as hateful and anti-Semitic, including using anti-Semitic tropes to enrage viewers.
Uygur defended the ad, solicited donations to keep the ad running in Michigan, and declared the segment defamatory.
The panelists do not appear to mention Uygur by name but the ad credit does refer to him. Ultimately, that is not critical anyway since you can have defamation per quod where the content is still defamatory in combination with reference to extrinsic information or evidence.
An actionable defamation case requires a false statement as to some fact that is published to a third party that causes reputational or other cognizable form of damage. This must be proven pursuant to the relevant standard of proof, discussed below.
As a threshold issue, Uygur is a public figure who must meet a higher standard for any defamation lawsuit. He has long been an influencer and commentator on national stories. In addition to being the host of the popular Young Turks program and a MSNBC regular, he is the uncle of Hasan Piker.
The standard for defamation for public figures and officials in the United States is the product of a decision decades ago in New York Times v. Sullivan. Ironically, this is precisely the environment in which the opinion was written and he is precisely the type of plaintiff that the opinion was meant to deter. The Supreme Court ruled that tort law could not be used to overcome First Amendment protections for free speech or the free press. The Court sought to create “breathing space” for the media by articulating that standard that now applies to both public officials and public figures. In order to prevail, Uygur must show either actual knowledge of its falsity or a reckless disregard of the truth.
However, the greatest problem for Uygur is that the panelists are expressing their own opinions on the value and the content of the ad. It is protected speech and an exception to defamation. Declaring that the ad is anti-Semitic is not a “fact” assertion that would qualify as the foundation for a libel action.
The Supreme Court has rejected the claim that there is a categorical defense for anything claimed to be defamation. See Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1 (1990). However, opinion is protected speech and routinely protected by the courts from defamation liability.
The CNN segment is armor-plated, unassailable opinon, in my view. Ironically, it is Uygur who has been criticized for misrepresenting the factual context for the ad.
Critics have objected that the $26 billion figure actually comes from a 2024 emergency spending package and not, as suggested, a new amount. That makes sense because the ad was recycled from Uygar’s 2024 presidential campaign.
The 2024 legislation included over $9 billion in humanitarian assistance, including relief for Palestinian civilians in Gaza and other populations. There was also roughly $7 billion set aside for American military operations in the Middle East the replenishment of American military stockpiles. There were payments of $3.5 billion in foreign military financing for Israel and $5.2 billion for missile defense systems.
The good news for Uygar is that the ad itself is also political speech and opinion. Moreover, while some countries or groups have filed for group libel, they are routinely rejected. That includes dubious libel lawsuits by Israel.
Whatever viable lawsuits come out of the Michigan election, the Uygur defamation action will not be one of them.
“More Russian fuel could soon enter global markets despite the backlash in Ukraine..”
• US Hints At Expanding Russian Diesel Deal (RT)
Energy Secretary Chris Wright
More Russian diesel fuel could enter global markets as part of a trade agreement between Moscow and Washington struck earlier this month, Energy Secretary Chris Wright has said. He claimed the shipments could be a “carrot” for Moscow to scale back fighting in Ukraine.Read more …
US President Donald Trump announced the landmark diesel deal with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on October 9, saying Russia would release more than 300,000 metric tons of diesel immediately, 500,000 tons in November, another million afterward and potentially 3 million more, depending on refinery capacity.Trump called lowering fuel prices for American consumers his “greatest priority” ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, where the Republicans are at risk of losing their congressional majority.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky condemned the surprise deal as a “weak decision,” prompting an angry response from Trump, who suggested that Ukraine replace Zelensky with someone willing to negotiate peace with Russia. Trump has also repeatedly pressed Zelensky to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries, something Kiev has refused to do.
Speaking to CNBC on Tuesday, Wright described the diesel deal as an “incentive” for Moscow to stop hostilities with Ukraine, adding that more Russian tankers could “quite possibly” depart under a six-month sanctions waiver. “It’s trying to put a carrot in front of Russia,” he said, arguing that reduced hostilities would allow Moscow to export more diesel and marginally ease global fuel shortages.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak said on Tuesday that three tankers carrying diesel are already en route to the US, with a fourth expected to depart Wednesday. On Sunday, he offered to supply as much as buyers wanted within Russia’s available export volumes, saying: “We can supply all of it.” He previously said Russian diesel exports could reach 3.5 million tons monthly by year-end.
During a meeting with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff last week in St. Petersburg, Putin noted that global diesel prices fell 5%-6% after the deal was announced. Earlier this week, Reuters reported that Russia’s daily diesel output rose from 160,000 tons in early October to 180,000 tons after the introduction of new export quotas.
The agreement has nevertheless met bipartisan resistance in Washington, with a group of senators calling it a “gift to our adversary” and a betrayal of Ukraine. Novak pushed back on Tuesday, singling out Democrats and wondering why US lawmakers were acting “not in the interests of the residents of the United States.”
“The measure, which would force those involved in violence to pay up to €10,000 in damages, comes amid nationwide unrest ..
“France has more riot crackdown laws than anyone probably.
• France Planning New Riot Crackdown Law (RT)
France’s Senate has backed a sweeping “vandals pay” bill that could force people involved in violent gatherings to cover up to €10,000 ($11,100) in damage caused not only by them, but also by other members of the group. The vote follows weeks of nationwide protests which spiraled into looting, arson attacks, and clashes with police.Read more …
The bill was initially drafted by the government over the summer after violence following Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League victory, but it gained urgency after a new wave of mass public disorder. Demonstrations against soaring living costs and worsening quality of education turned violent in several cities this month, with rioters looting shops, torching vehicles, and destroying the 19th-century city hall in Limoges. Thousands of people were arrested during the unrest, with hundreds injured.Senators passed the measure by 229 votes to 105 on Wednesday, backed by conservatives, centrists, and Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally despite fierce objections from the left.While presenting the legislation, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez argued that it seeks “to deter vandals and looters who burden taxpayers and demonstrators with their misdeeds, and… to better compensate the victims of this damage.”
He added that the bill is also “firmly based on fault; fault exists when one participates in a group formed with the intention of committing violence.” Meanwhile, centrist Senator Olivier Bitz reassured that “it should not be assumed that this text would allow for the prosecution of passersby or peaceful demonstrators.”
The bill – which included around 20 additional provisions compared to its original version – establishes joint civil liability for people who knowingly join a group formed to commit violence or vandalism, or remain in a crowd after police dispersal warnings while aware of ongoing attacks. Those found liable could owe up to €10,000 for destruction committed by others, although the final sum is to be determined in court, and peaceful participation alone would not trigger the measure.
To recover court-ordered compensation, the legislation would also allow deductions from social benefits, including family allowances, housing assistance, and minimum-income payments. The bill would also exempt people who remain in a gathering for legitimate reasons, potentially including journalists and medical volunteers.
While centrists and right-wing supporters portrayed the bill as a more just measure to extract damages from those involved in vandalism and protect law-abiding taxpayers, socialist Senator Marie-Pierre de La Gontrie warned that the welfare measures risk penalizing entire families.
Nathalie Godard, Director of the Action Department at Amnesty International France, also argued that the bill “threatens to further deter people from taking to the streets to exercise their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly,” adding that it comes on the heels of the government’s push to crack down on protests.
The Senate passed the bill ahead of the 2027 presidential race, with two key contenders taking contrasting positions over the unrest. Marine Le Pen, the frontrunner in recent polls, has championed the “vandals pay” principle, accusing President Emmanuel Macron’s government of failing to control the violence.
Her left-wing rival Jean-Luc Melenchon has backed the protests while condemning looting and vandalism and accusing the authorities of inflaming tensions through police brutality.
While the bill sailed through the right-dominated Senate, it now faces a much tougher test in the fractured National Assembly, where centrist and right-wing lawmakers together hold enough seats to outvote the left but remain divided over the proposed crackdown.
“President Trump signed an executive order last year that allowed all military service members who were discharged for refusing the vaccine to be reinstated.”
• Hegseth Reinstates General Forced To Retire For Refusing Covid Vaccine (JTN)
The Pentagon said Tuesday that War Secretary Pete Hegseth has reinstated an Air Force general who was forced to retire early in 2022 after she refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine under the Biden administration. President Trump signed an executive order last year that allowed all military service members who were discharged for refusing the vaccine to be reinstated. Air Force Brig. Gen. Melissa S. Cunningham, a 26-year veteran, was sworn back onto active duty in a ceremony last week.Read more …
“What a wonderful thing it is to be standing here right now with you, with the stance that you’ve taken,” Hegseth told Cunningham. “Not only did you take a private stand in a very principled way as a warrior of conscience, but you led the way for others … and you stood courageously beside [your principles] on your faith, … which truly speaks to your character and is exactly, precisely, the kind of person we want to be bringing back.”Hegseth admitted that bringing service members back has been a more difficult process than he expected, but that it has been worth it. The Pentagon said 608 service members have returned to active duty out of more than 8,000 who were forced to leave for refusing the vaccine.
“Those of you that have been here know [the reinstatement process] has not been an easy one, and it’s not been a smooth one,” Hegseth said. “I just know that, from Day 1, we said, ‘We will do this.’ And, from Day 2, we said, ‘The only way we lose is if we quit, if we stop trying to improve the process [and] if we stop trying to find the warriors.'”
Cunningham thanked the current administration for allowing and working to get the service members back and pleaded with service members who have not returned to “help repair the breach.” “We need leaders, those courageous warriors [of] moral conscience, to return. The threats that our nation faces require bold, critical thinkers, and we need them back in the ranks,” she said. “Your spiritual fortitude, your character and your courage are greatly needed in this hour, and our nation demands it. I am so fired up to be back.”
The Department of Homeland Security swore in 56 United States Coast Guard members earlier this year who were dismissed during the Biden administration for failing to get the COVID vaccine. The Coast Guard members received back pay effective from the date of their discharge and their service records were changed to reflect a period of continuous active service between the date of their discharge and their reinstatement.
She was the girl who said he lunged at secret service detail in his car, right?
• Grand Jury Refuses To Indict Cassidy Hutchinson Over Her Jan. 6 Testimony (ZH)
A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., has declined to indict former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, ending – for now – a Justice Department effort to charge her with lying to the House Jan. 6 committee, according to two sources who spoke to Fox News. The attempt failed on Tuesday.Read more …
The outcome surfaced in court. In a brief appearance, a Justice Department attorney told a judge the grand jury had returned a “non-concurrence,” meaning the panel rejected the indictment prosecutors sought. The prosecutor did not name a defendant, but sources familiar with the matter confirmed he was referring to Hutchinson.The case was brought by the department’s Civil Rights Division, and the grand jury, which typically has 16 to 23 members, “rejected the effort,” a source told the Washington Examiner.
Hutchinson, an aide to then-chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified to the committee on June 28, 2022. The charge would have rested on her televised account, which she attributed to another White House official, of Trump’s reaction after being told he could not travel to the Capitol, including an alleged confrontation inside the presidential vehicle. Others familiar with the events have disputed that account.
Grand juries almost never refuse an indictment, because prosecutors need only show probable cause. CNN reports some inside the department believed there was not enough evidence for a viable criminal case, and that her potential prosecution had become a point of friction between lawmakers and department employees.
The grand jury had been hearing evidence since early October. Fox reported on Oct. 8 that jurors were examining possible false statements to the committee, that more evidence could come the following week, and that no final decision had been made. The Justice Department and her attorney did not respond to that report’s requests for comment.
The decision settles nothing about whether her testimony was true. Fox notes the grand jury’s decision “does not establish whether her congressional testimony was truthful or false,” and that Hutchinson has previously said she stands by what she told the committee. No statement from Hutchinson, the Justice Department or the committee was reported in response to the decision.
It also remains unclear whether prosecutors will try again with the same grand jury or another, or let the matter drop. Fox said it asked the Justice Department and the offices of Reps. Barry Loudermilk and Bennie Thompson for comment and had no response.
🚨 JUST NOW: President Trump posts a video showing the SHOCKING downfall of France, comparing videos from 100 years ago to now
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) October 27, 2026
France was one of the best countries in the world until it got taken over by third world barbarians.
They were warned! pic.twitter.com/iOqIxnoFrs
🚨 BREAKING: Three nuclear superpowers just met in Moscow—and the British Empire is in full panic mode.
— Forbidden Leaks (@ForbiddenLeaksQ) October 28, 2026
Trump's envoy + Putin + China's foreign minister = The end of 300 years of imperial control.
This is the geopolitical earthquake they don't want you to see.
Watch now 👇 pic.twitter.com/7UBdvlNovK
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2115069118588080251?a=BhpN-pSuTP23T-IHXLE&s=20In England, vaccine uptake landed around 70 percent, meaning 30 percent never took a single dose. Denmark came in the same. So did Finland. Africa was even lower. America lands in that same range, roughly 30 percent who never vaccinated.
— Del Bigtree (@delbigtree) October 27, 2026
That number is worth sitting with. Under… pic.twitter.com/2ATYpKIbyX
🚨 ELON IS PUTTING AMERICA BACK ON THE MOON.
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) October 28, 2026
Starship is in the lab getting tested right now. The rocket that can refuel in zero-g and carry the heavy lift NASA needs.
While Bezos is building a lander, Musk is proving the architecture that actually scales. Refuel in orbit. Land… pic.twitter.com/3l08ZsCcbs
‼️🚨One if not the most important video in the history of the 20 century!
— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) October 27, 2026
🚨How the City of London is not part of the UK.
🚨For those who have not seen this before it’s important you watch and listen. The City of London, Washington DC and the Vatican City all have special… pic.twitter.com/TYi3T5GWBB
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