I wouldn’t want Bari Weiss’s job

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Which is fortunate, because it will never be offered to me.

But what a thankless task, to tell biased leftist “journalists” they need to cover an important story that reflects poorly on Democrats:

CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss faced “significant resistance” from staff at Thursday’s 9 a.m. meeting about the growing Alaska ballot controversy, network insiders told Fox News Digital.

“This is a scandal,” Weiss declared to staff.

According to multiple sources on the call, several CBS News staffers pushed back at Weiss’ enthusiasm over the bombshell New York Times report alleging Democrats schemed to find a Dan Sullivan to run against incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, in hopes of aiding Democratic opponent Mary Peltola.

My question is quite simple, though: why did The New York Times cover it? What’s going on there?

And here the Ruthless podcast guys try to answer that question. They provide a fair amount of detail, but the gist of what they say is that the Democrat operatives in charge of the ploy had previously lied to the Times reporters, and the reporters got angry about having been duped:

Did the Israeli Arab parties commit election fraud?

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See this (it’s a translation from the Hebrew, so attempts to embed it end up with a Hebrew version). Here’s what it says in English [my emphasis]:

Likud: The elections in the State of Israel were stolen by Arab parties that support terrorism and the elimination of the Jewish state through serious criminal offenses of bribery, threats, violence, forgeries, and the use of prohibited software to mobilize voters.

The Likud party is transferring to the police, the Shin Bet, and the Central Elections Committee hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence regarding election theft in many Arab polling stations—thousands of envelopes with cash and Ra’am slips, threats and violence against polling station members, multiple voting behind the curtain, voting with double identities, discrepancies between the number of envelopes and the number of voters, the use of prohibited mobilization software, and more.

We demand from the police and the Shin Bet a thorough investigation into the election theft by the Arab parties and the full prosecution of the criminals.

We demand from the Central Elections Committee an immediate response to investigate these criminal offenses that have severely damaged the integrity of the elections in Israel and the election results.

This is a serious blow to Israeli democracy and the voting rights of Israeli citizens. The law enforcement agencies must act with an iron fist and in an immediate manner.

There are interesting comments at the link, mostly of the “loser, loser!” variety. And yet Netanyahu didn’t actually lose, although he lost seats compared to his majority win in the 2022 election. That majority victory, however, was a rare event in recent Israeli elections; a stalemate has been much more common. His party is the leading party now and his coalition the leading bloc and therefore may be the most likely to be able to form some sort of coalition government.

Twenty percent of Israeli citizens are Arabs, something the Israel-haters ignore except when they want to say that Israeli Arabs are persecuted. But they vote and have Knesset representation. In the recent election the Arab parties did much better than expected, and the question is why.

If there’s evidence of fraud, it needs to be heard. Of course, the left says it’s racist to even consider the question.

RIP Patrick Stewart

The New Neo Posted on by

Actor Patrick Stewart has died at 86, “after a brief battle with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy Body dementia.” Terrible diseases both.

Stewart had a commanding presence (he was Caption Jean-Luc Picard, after all) and a sonorous voice. His career was long and varied, although I confess it’s really only the Picard role for which I know him.

RIP.

It’s candy corn day

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[NOTE: This post is a slightly-edited repeat of a post.]

No, I didn’t make it up. It really is National Candy Corn Day, the day “the nation celebrates its favorite vegetable.”

No doubt all of my readers, being unusually well-informed people, were already aware of that. But did you know it is estimated that in this country thirty-five million pounds of the classic treat (invented in the 1880s) are sold every year? And by the way, my original post from 2008 had the number at twenty million, according to the same Wiki link, so the number had nearly doubled by 2016, the year of the most recent update at the site.

I personally might be responsible for approximately a ton of that if I gave in to my worst impulses. However, I keep my addiction in tightly-controlled check.

It is part of my penance to confess here that I really love the dreadful stuff and always have, and I’m far from alone (my impression is that candy corn is one of those things a person either loves or hates). Years ago I even went to a Halloween party dressed as a piece of candy corn, and believe me I was already a grownup. I did it again last year and in fact, I’m planning to dress that way again this year. The first time I did it, no one guessed what I was supposed to be, although I thought it was obvious.

Apparently I am not the only adult who has dressed up as candy corn on Halloween. And no, I didn’t look like this—more’s the pity (although to be technical, isn’t she dressed as two pieces of candy corn, the body and the hat?):

candycorncostume.gif

I heard on Fox News (can’t give a link here because I was unable to find the information online) that candy corn is the Halloween treat most often stolen by parents from their kids’ Halloween stash. I believe this to be undeniably true. It is a guilty, shameful secret for most, but I am glad this is finally seeing the light of day.

There are various gourmet variations on candy corn, and I’ve sampled quite a few in my day. A helpful reader sent me some information about this Brach product for example, which includes:

Green Beans, Roasted Turkey, Cranberry Sauce, Stuffing, Apple Pie and Coffee. (Fans of Ginger Glazed Carrots, which were part of last year’s batch, should note that flavor is gone.)

I had tried the earlier version, and it was terrible. This sounds even worse. It’s the good old Brach’s original candy corn that I continue to crave; there is no other brand worth eating, and believe me I’ve tried many a substitute. The Brach’s version been sold out where I live for quite some time, but I purchased it early.

And here’s a burning question: do you eat your candy corn in sections? And, if so, do you consider the top to be the yellow part or the white part? I’ve always seen the little white triangle as the “foot” of the candy corn, but I learned when I designed my costume years ago that most people see it the other way. For those who might be inclined to disagree with me, I offer the following exhibit from the realm of science; the kernel grows with the tip – corresponding to the white part of the candy – down, embedded in the cob:

corn-components.jpg

I have noticed this year – 2026 – that candy corn sold out in most stores very very early. For weeks I haven’t seen it anywhere. Probably a blessing in disguise.

Could this be the most common method for living past 100?

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It’s rather grotesque. And who would have thought this practice would be popular in Japan, of all places?:

Fraud is rampant everywhere, it seems:

In 2010, welfare officials in Tokyo tried to visit Sogen Kato, a local man living in the city’s Adachi district, to congratulate him on his 111th birthday. Their records identified him as the oldest man in the city, but his family kept turning them away, saying he didn’t want visitors or had taken a trip somewhere five hours away.

When police finally entered the house, they found Kato’s mummified remains lying in bed, dressed in pajamas and covered with a blanket. He’d been dead for at least 30 years, although his family claimed he’d shut himself away to become a living Buddha.

His pension kept paying, and someone withdrew 2.7 million yen, about $31,000 at the time, after officials started asking questions. …

“This prompted the Japanese Ministry of Justice to check in on other centenarians: not just in Tokyo but across all Japan,” writes scientist Saul Justin Newman in his new book, “Morbid: Debunking Modern Longevity Science” …

Across Japan, the audit identified 234,354 people still on family registers whose whereabouts couldn’t be confirmed. All would have been at least 100 if alive. Newman describes them as dead or missing and puts their share at more than 82% of the recorded centenarian population.

His findings have been disputed, however, and some researchers say there were only 600 such “missing” centenarians. That’s 600 too many, I’d say.

The whole thing reminds me of a bit of the Faulkner story “A Rose for Emily.”

Another changer heard from – plus, poll of Jewish voters

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For this woman and former Democrat, who had believed Obama would be a fabulous president, it was Obamacare that started her political change experience.

Does the following sound familiar?:

Changing your political beliefs is not easy. It’s especially difficult when you’ve invested years of your life believing that your side consists of the Good Guys. If your side is the Good Guys, then the other side must be the Bad Guys. And if the Bad Guys turn out to have been right about something important, you have a problem.

You can either reconsider your beliefs or construct an elaborate series of excuses explaining why reality is being unfair.

She made excuses to herself for a while. But eventually she had trouble doing that:

… I had to admit something. I had been wrong.

I had been wrong about enough important things that I could no longer pretend otherwise, and I changed my political allegiance. I could no longer pretend.

That was about eleven years ago. You might think this would be the end of the story.

HA HA HA.

No. Because the Democratic Party had decided that the Obama years were merely the warm-up act.

Well, yes. Then again, a great many Democrats seem to be able to either continue to make excuses for the party, or to embrace the changes.

And speaking of political changers, here’s a poll that might reflect something real (although as I’ve said many times, polls have gotten iffier and iffier):

Republicans lead Democrats by 31 points among Jewish voters on the congressional ballot, according to a McLaughlin & Associates poll that points to a potential shift among a group that has long favored Democrats.

The poll found that 64 percent of Jewish voters backed Republicans for Congress, while 33 percent supported Democrats, pollsters John and Jim McLaughlin wrote in an article published by the firm Monday.

The result would mark a major shift from the large margins by which Jewish voters have traditionally favored Democrats, though pollsters John and Jim McLaughlin warned that the sample of Jewish voters was small.

Of course, as I’ve written many times, the definition of “Jewish” in the case of US voters is not a religious one, it’s an ethnic one. The more religious a Jew is, the more likely to vote for conservatives. Or, as CBD at Ace’s wrote today:

When a Christian rejects his religion, does not follow its precepts, is openly antagonistic to those who follow Christ, we call him an atheist. When so-called Jews reject their religion, do not follow its precepts, are openly antagonistic to those who follow the Torah, we call them…Jews? Why? Because they have Jewish names and eat bagels and lox on Sunday mornings? I eat fish most Fridays…does that mean I am Catholic?

Well, being Jewish is different from adhering to Judaism, because Jews are also a people. I’ve written about this and related topics before, for example here.

Ilhan Omar’s problems seem to have reached critical mass

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So much so that some Democrats seem to be abandoning her, at least somewhat.

Funny thing is that people on the right – and particularly anyone who regularly reads Powerline – have known for many many years most if not all of the facts now coming out in the MSM about Omar (including her probable real name, but for simplicity’s sake I will continue to call her Omar for now). The evidence Powerline presented was really quite overwhelming. And yet it was ignored by the mainstream – till now.

Why have forty Democrats suddenly decided that Omar may not be worth fighting for?:

On Monday, 175 House Democrats signed a letter penned by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) that accused the DOJ and DHS of weaponizing law enforcement. …

But take note of who did not want to be associated with the circus: 40 Dems, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA-11) and several lawmakers in the New York/New Jersey area. Why?

Those non-signers who are from New York and New Jersey might be abstaining because both states have many Jewish voters and signing it would have hurt their re-election chances. But Nancy Pelosi didn’t sign it either – why?

However, even if Omar is somehow removed from Congress, it’s virtually certain that she would be replaced by another Democrat – perhaps even another Democrat of Somali ethnicity. So I don’t see that there’s all that much risk for Democrats to abandon her; it ultimately wouldn’t affect Democrat totals in Congress.

And I don’t want to make too much of this. After all, the vast majority of Democrats in the House signed that letter.

[ADDENDUM: Also, an Obama-era investigation found that Omar had committed fraud but decided not to pursue the matter. Fancy that – a completely nonpolitical decision, I’m sure.]

Israeli election results: reports of Netanyahu’s political death seem to have been premature

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Netanyahu’s party has done better than expected, but not well enough to win an outright majority.

It’s interesting, isn’t it? – the “better than expected” part. The not reaching a majority part was completely expected. It had been widely predicted that neither coalition would reach a majority in the election.

The results so far: It seems that the Netanyahu bloc has 53 seats and his opponent Eisenkot’s bloc has 48, with the Arab parties having 19.

If Eisenkot were to form a government it would need to include the Arab coalition. Would he and his allies do so? I don’t think it’s likely, although it depends on how nakedly ambitious they are and how strongly they’re dedicated to stopping Netanyahu. Several of them have gone on record prior to the election as saying they wouldn’t agree to a coalition with the Arab parties, but will they adhere to that? The other alternative would be a coalition government with Netanyahu.

In an opinion piece by an Israeli – in the Netanyahu-hating Guardian – the headline reads, “A bitter night in Israel for all who craved a fresh start. Netanyahu survives for now – and we are more divided than ever.”

An excerpt:

At 10pm Jerusalem time, three television stations published their exit polls by veteran pollsters showing a stinging loss for Netanyahu’s current government. In all three, his current coalition won just 50 out of 120 parliamentary seats, with 70 for the opposition. It was small consolation for Netanyahu that his Likud party held a slight lead over the main challenger, the Yashar party led by former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot.

Millions of Israelis who voted for opposition parties felt exhilarated. Together, four Zionist lists within the opposition ran a two- or three-seat lead over Netanyahu’s bloc, though neither of those groupings was close to a 61-seat majority. Eisenkot gave a passionate speech about the defeat of the “coalition of failure”, by a “larger and stronger Zionist majority”. ….

Then the counting began. Within hours, Netanyahu’s bloc staged a reversal, pulling significantly ahead of the four opposition Zionist parties many hoped would replace him. The Arab parties retained a strong showing but lower than the original heady projections. But three of the four Zionist parties preferred to exclude them for coalition-building purposes. As a result, even if the total opposition vote outweighs support for the outgoing government, Netanyahu might have done it again.

It is not yet clear if any one group of parties can reach a 61-seat majority. Negotiations to form a coalition will take dizzying twists in the coming weeks; maybe a minority government or a stalemate will be the unsatisfying result.

More here:

Parties opposed to Netanyahu have a clear majority … But they are fractured and divided between right, left and center, and between Jewish and Arab parties.

Eisenkot’s Yashar party is the largest in the opposition, projected to win 21 seats, but his path to power runs through cooperation with the Arab parties, … a scenario not all the party leaders in the opposition are willing to accept.

We’ve seen this sort of thing (or something like it) before in Israel. Netanyahu often has managed to pull out a coalition but in 2019 he failed to do so:

Israeli lawmakers have voted to dissolve parliament after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a coalition government.

The vote triggered a fresh election, which will be held on 17 September.

Mr Netanyahu was unable to reach a deal for a fresh right-wing coalition following last month’s election.

At the heart of the impasse was a military conscription bill governing exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students.

The upshot was that no one could form a government, and the Knesset once again dissolved itself and there was a third election in March of 2020. Here’s how that went:

The result was initially a stalemate, which was resolved when Likud and Blue & White reached a coalition agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, the premiership would rotate between Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, with Gantz given the new position of Alternate Prime Minister until November 2021. …

Netanyahu and the new Israeli government were sworn in on 17 May. On 23 December, the Knesset again dissolved, resulting in the need for new elections.

In that next election in March of 2021, Bennet and Lapid took power by allying with the Arab parties So there is precedent for that, but the whole thing didn’t last very long; in November of 2022 there was still another election and Netanyahu won an outright majority.

The thirty-sixth government, a national unity government formed between eight political parties following the 2021 elections, held the narrowest possible majority (61 seats) in the 120-member Knesset. In April 2022, MK Idit Silman left the governing coalition, leaving it without a majority.

On 20 June 2022, following several legislative defeats for the government in the Knesset, prime minister Naftali Bennett and alternate prime minister Yair Lapid announced the introduction of a bill to dissolve the 24th Knesset, which was approved on 30 June. Simultaneously, in accordance with the rotation government agreement that was part of the 2021 coalition deal, Lapid became prime minister and led a caretaker government until a new government took office.

Within the context of the 2018–2022 Israeli political crisis, this was the fifth Knesset election in nearly four years,

After that experience, it seems to me that there will be a lot of pressure for the two sides to have a unity government and avoid seemingly-endless repeats. Then again, I don’t know that the spirit of compromise looms large.

Flavio Bolsonaro takes a Miami vacation

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It wasn’t a direct flight:

Sources earlier confirmed to CNN that Bolsonaro had left Brazil for the US after losing Sunday’s presidential election runoff against leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Brazil’s Federal Police canceled Bolsonaro’s passports after he failed to surrender them, affiliate CNN Brasil reported.

Speculation about his movements mounted after Argentine news outlet Infobae reported that Bolsonaro, a Trump-aligned candidate, had left Brazil via Argentina. The Argentine government initially said in a statement that it has “no record of Flávio Bolsonaro entering” the country.

But early Wednesday morning Argentinian time, the country’s immigration ministry said in a post to X that Bolsonaro and his family had entered Argentina from Brazil late Tuesday local time, and shortly after had boarded a flight to Guayaquil in Ecuador, according to its flight plan.

It added they had entered Argentina with “valid documentation” and without any “legal impediment.”

And now he’s landed in Miami with his wife and two daughters. The article also points out:

In leaving Brazil for the US, Bolsonaro joins a large community of Brazilian conservatives in exile — including his own brother Eduardo, former Brazilian intelligence chief Alexandre Ramagem and podcaster Paulo Figueiredo.

And you can bet more are following, if they can manage to do so.

Flavio is the son of Jair, a previous president of Brazil and rival of Lula. Jair’s history is instructive. Among other things, it features a J6 semi-equivalent that was used by Lula to successfully do to Jair what the left previously attempted and failed to do to Trump – and still fantasizes doing to him.

Here’s some of the story of how Jair ended up with a 27-year prison sentence (although he’s under house arrest now for health reasons). He lost an election to Lula and then:

On 30 December 2022, one day before the end of his term, Bolsonaro arrived in the US state of Florida and resided in Kissimmee for several months. On 8 January 2023, his supporters attacked the buildings of the Supreme Court of Brazil, the National Congress, and the Planalto Presidential Palace to instigate a military coup d’état and reinstate Bolsonaro as president. While the riots were going on, President Lula blamed Bolsonaro in a press conference. Bolsonaro condemned the protesters in a Twitter post on 9 January, and denied responsibility.

In February 2023, Bolsonaro announced that he would return to Brazil in March. This would be the first time Bolsonaro had returned since December 2022. Bolsonaro had entered the United States on a diplomatic visa, which expired on 31 January, but the family applied for tourist visas to extend their stay in Florida.

Bolsonaro returned to Brazil in March 2023 for the first time since his supporters stormed the Supreme Court, Congress, and the presidential palace two months before. Bolsonaro stated that he returned to the country to help his party and intended to campaign for the 2024 elections. On 14 April 2023, Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered Bolsonaro to submit himself for questioning with the Federal Police over the storming of the Congress. …

On 30 June 2023, the Superior Electoral Court barred Bolsonaro from running for public office until 2030 as a result of his attempts to undermine the validity of Brazil’s 2022 democratic election, as well as for abuse of power with regard to using government channels to promote his campaign. … He was prosecuted on several fraud charges in the 2022 elections and events linked to the 8 January attack on federal government buildings. The decision came after a 5–2 vote in favour of conviction. …

In November 2024 he and 36 others were formally charged with plotting a coup d’état, violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, and criminal organisation. In February 2025 Bolsonaro and 33 others were formally charged with plotting to assassinate Lula da Silva and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. …

On 11 September 2025, the Supreme Federal Court sentenced Bolsonaro to 27 years and 3 months in prison over the coup plot.

Also, it was the same judge, Moraes, who had ruled against the father who recently ruled against the son:

Flavio Bolsonaro lost the October 25 runoff to [Lula] by more than 4.4 million votes — 48.2% to Lula’s 51.8% — yet federal police stopped him in the street the next morning and stripped him of all three passports on the order of Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

Moraes — whose wife’s law firm is at the center of a leaked R$131 million contract with jailed banker Daniel Vorcaro, with metadata showing Moraes himself edited the final draft — had previously been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury under the Global Magnitsky Act in July 2025, though those sanctions were lifted in December of that year.

As for the judge who extended the voting hours in the first place, which apparently helped Lula pull out the win against Flavio:

He gained notoriety as a personal attorney of [Lula] in lawsuits related to Operation Car Wash.

On 1 June 2023, Zanin was appointed by president Lula da Silva as Justice of the Supreme Federal Court, replacing retired Justice Ricardo Lewandowski.

Not too suspicious, right?