Links - 31st October 2026 (2 - French Migrant Riots)

Christian Heiens 🏛 on X - "There is no liberal democratic solution to the fact that a majority of the voting public demands things which are mathematically impossible to provide.  People in France want nigh unlimited funding for everything ranging from Boomer communism to the world’s most lavish welfare state, and no one in electoral politics dares to tell them that all of their demands are physically impossible to meet because courageous politicians are also stupid politicians.  There is no escape. No one can do what must be done because the rewards are too great for those who counter-signal against doing the right thing.   So long as political legitimacy rests upon democratic consent, political reality will tend towards insolvency."
Meanwhile left wingers praise the French and want mobs in the rest of the world to pressure governments to follow them into fiscal oblivion. The fact that even in perhaps the world's most generous welfare state, left wingers still claim it's not enough, is telling.

Carlo Martin on X (Translated) - "🇮🇹 | This is what's happening today in Turin, Italy, where a pro-Hamas mob violently broke through the police cordon and vandalized Piazza Castello. This is not just a student protest; it's a war against the West, and Europe is its first victim."

RadioGenoa on X - "Total chaos in Europe. Brussels. Student protest. Journalist: "What are you protesting against?" Student: "I don't know, but we came to protest." Journalist: "What is your message?" Student: "Destroy everything!" This is not Europe anymore."

Shai Goldman on X - "Marseille city hall has fallen & they have put up Palestinian flags inside"

Connor Tomlinson on X - "If ever there were a metaphor for why our nations are in ruin, it's a bunch of Boomers dancing on the banks of the Seine while the sons of the third world burn Paris to the ground."

cbcwatcher on X - "Deliberate CBC omissions on France protests. CBC on the French high school protests (and the broader October 17 mobilization): teacher shortages, rats in classrooms, tear gas, “kids want better schools,” and now “some unrest.”
What they leave out:
* On October 17, during the national day of action (students + yellow-vest/cost-of-living elements), hooded individuals deliberately set fire to Limoges’ historic 19th-century Hôtel de Ville after burning police cars and forcing entry. The campanile collapsed, much of the roof and structure was destroyed — a “catastrophe patrimoniale.” The prefect and mayor described it as an intentional act by violent groups, not ordinary demonstrators. The building is largely lost
* This sits on top of weeks of earlier violence: schools and fire trucks torched, teachers assaulted or doused with gasoline, hundreds of police injured, Merah/Bataclan-glorifying rap sung at blockades (including in a church), Palestinian flags and “October 7. Day of Celebration” graffiti, and Muslim gangs from banlieues joining leftist activists
* LFI / Mélenchon’s role in escalating the movement. Mélenchon (Trotskyist background) has advocated Islamization and a “great replacement”/“new France,” recruited pro-Hamas figures like Rima Hassan, refuses to call Hamas terrorists, draws heavy Muslim support, and has long pushed anti-police rhetoric. The Gatestone analysis frames this as a leftist-Islamist alliance using school grievances as a vehicle to attack the Republic.
CBC reports the grievances and the clashes. It erases the deliberate destruction of civic symbols, the terrorist glorification, the Islamist symbols and gang involvement, the LFI radicalization, and the explicit rejection of French institutions on display. The sanitized CBC version pretends this is still just about underfunded classrooms"

Andrew Kolvet on X - "The left loves euphamisms. They may call it...
Good trouble Globalize the Intifada Black Lives Matter The summer of love Confronting the patriarchy Ending apartheid Fighting oppression Anti-colonialism Indigenous rights Etc. etc. etc.
 But it's just a bloody, fiery revolution that will destroy all the beautiful things our ancestors left us.  Deport the foreigners. Arrest everyone else.  Vote like your civilization depends on it, because it does."

Jennifer Lee Jones | Facebook - "You know what’s violent? Wage theft. Family court corruption. Police brutality. Institutionalized hostility against poor people. Corporate greed. Ecological destruction. The healthcare system. The president of the United States’ cult. Genocide. Burning government buildings that uphold strategic procedural and generational violence is cultural correction."
To left wingers, violence they approve of is not violent, and everything non-violent they disapprove of is violence

An Israeli mother on X - "They are very organized.   In Marseille, ALL the Jewish-owned shops on the protest path were broken and looted, and most of the Christian-owned ones.  NONE of the Muslim-owned ones.  Here, one guy saves a shop by telling the others "it's a sister".  You know djihad when you see it."

Thaïs d’Escufon on X - "“Don’t smash it up, she’s a sister!” This shop manager protecting her business is spared by the thugs out of Muslim solidarity. Still absolutely no connection to immigration."

(((IsraelMatzav))) on X - "*🇫🇷 WATCH: France’s Riots — Paul Amar Says Jewish-Owned Shops Were Targeted in Marseille*  French journalist Paul Amar, discussing the October 17 unrest in France, says Jewish-owned businesses were singled out on a street in Marseille:  “They came prepared. They had the addresses of town halls. They had addresses of Jewish shop owners.  In a street in Marseille, all businesses owned by Jews were set on fire. Businesses run by Muslims weren’t.”"

Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر on X - "French rioter with sign that says “stop gassing us we are not Jews.” Filthy third worldist garbage."

Andy Ngo on X - "“TRANS ANTIFA” Antifa, Trantifa and far-left extremists did more than a million euros in damage at the University of Nantes @NantesUniv  in France as part of the ongoing far-left (plus immigrant) attacks across the country and also Belgium.  The militants stockpiled chunks of concrete for attacks and vandalized the building with Antifa symbols, stickers and messages everywhere. Seventeen seconds into the video, you can see “TRANS ANTIFA” on the wall."

Rob Schneider 🇺🇸 on X - "France has FREE health care, paid parental leave, paid family leave, FREE child care, FREE preschool, 5 weeks paid vacation, a 35 hour work week, generous unemployment and housing benefits, and heavily subsidized higher education. Everything the left says they want AND THEY'RE STILL PROTESTING AND BURNING SHIT DOWN."
Left wingers will never be happy

French Protesters Demand More Socialism To Fix Problems Caused By Socialism | Babylon Bee - "Angry over the deep societal rot caused by socialist policies, millions of French people took to the streets to demand even more socialism.  The standard of living in France has declined precipitously as the government's socialist policies led to decaying services, punishing taxes, a bankrupt government, and historically low productivity. With mass migration pushing the festering problems of socialism over the brink, French protesters called for an increase in socialism.  "The government has completely and totally failed us. The only solution is more government," said protester Luc Moreau. "If the government controlled my life, I wouldn't be out here looting a Luis Vuitton store, would I? My burning down this store is yet another failure of our socialist government. If only things were super-duper socialist, everything would be wonderful, and I wouldn't be throwing this brick at an old lady."  The protesters consciously tailored their strategies to most effectively communicate their demands. "We want more money invested in schools, so we burned down the old ones," explained local man Phillipe Durand. "The government should have more money to spend on us, so we quit working. In fact, we are prepared to never work again to show just how serious we are about the government taking care of us. Until socialism has taken over completely, we will not stop showing the world the failures of socialism."  At publishing time, protesters had burned down 1,400 local businesses to protest the lack of available jobs."

Shai Goldman on X - "France is arguably the most leftist country on earth & it's still not sufficiently left enough for the protestors. there is free healtcare, free education, they work 35-hours a week, 6 week vacation, there is retirement accounts, free immigration, etc. the goal is a total destruction of a functioning country, no military, no police, no laws, whatever goes. you can not capitulate to the mob, they are finding out & hopefully others wake up"

Brivael Le Pogam on X - "I’m French. I want to talk to Americans who are about to vote Democrat. Not to insult you. To warn you.  I come from your future.  In France we did everything your progressive politicians promise. Free healthcare, free college, generous welfare, strong unions, heavy regulation, high taxes on the rich, a state that takes care of everything. Public spending close to 57% of GDP, one of the highest on the planet. On paper, it’s the dream.  Here’s what it looks like from the inside. France hasn’t passed a balanced budget since 1974. Our debt is above 3,300 billion euros. Interest on that debt is becoming one of the biggest items in the national budget. Our hospitals are collapsing despite record funding. Our schools rank lower every year. Young people with degrees can’t afford an apartment in the city they were born in. Our best engineers leave for London, Zurich and San Francisco. And the rich you wanted to tax? They left too, and took the jobs with them.  The promise was protection. The result is stagnation.  The worst part is that nobody in France voted for decline. Every single step sounded generous, compassionate, reasonable. One more program. One more regulation. One more tax to fund it. Each step alone makes sense. Fifty years of them, and you wake up in a country that can no longer build a nuclear plant on time or keep its streets safe.  I love America because it’s the one place on earth where people still believe they can build something from nothing. I came to Silicon Valley as a self-taught kid and it changed my life. That spirit is the most precious thing your country has.  Before you vote, ask yourself one question: is the program you’re voting for making America more like America, or more like France?  Trust me. You don’t want to be France."

Brivael Le Pogam on X - "Over the last two days I went on Fox News and Newsmax to warn Americans about what's happening in France. Today, the images speak for themselves.  October 17, 2026. In Marseille, France's second-largest city, a mob smashed through the doors of City Hall and stormed the lobby chanting "It's the revolution, we're taking the Bastille." Shortly before, rioters had trashed a municipal police station, breaking windows and throwing smoke bombs inside. Shops on the main avenue were vandalized and barricades were set on fire. In Paris, masked black bloc crews fired mortar fireworks at police at Place de la République while tear gas filled the square. There were 166 arrests nationwide by midday and more than 600 protests across the country, after weeks of blockaded high schools. The Yellow Vests are back.  Now here's what every American needs to understand. What are these people demanding? More: higher wages, higher pensions, more public spending, more state. That's in a country where the government already spends more than half of everything the economy produces.  This isn't an accident. It's where 45 years of socialism lead. Since 1981, left or right, every French government has grown the state. Macron is just the final, most polished version of the same system.  Socialism doesn't create prosperity. It creates dependency. When people rely on the state for everything, every disappointment turns into anger at the state. And the state cannot allocate capital. It doesn't risk its own money, and it never goes bankrupt when it's wrong. It just borrows more and taxes more. Productivity stalls, wages stagnate and prices rise. Then people take to the streets demanding even more state. The loop feeds itself until it breaks.  America, watch closely. If the Democrats fully embrace socialism, this is the trailer for what comes next. History is accelerating. It took France decades to get here. It won't take you nearly as long.  Vote for less government, never more."

Brivael Le Pogam on X - "Greta Thunberg se dit « extrêmement fière » des lycéens français.  Gardez ce signal en tête, parce qu'il résume tout.  En quelques années, la militante du climat est devenue militante de la Palestine, puis supportrice de n'importe quel mouvement de rue en Europe. Le sujet change, mais la posture ne bouge jamais.  Ce n'est pas un hasard. C'est une méthode.  Une cause peut être réelle. Le réchauffement existe, Gaza est un drame, et la colère de certains lycéens est sincère. Mais dans ce logiciel, la cause n'est jamais une fin, c'est un véhicule. On la charge d'émotion, on la vide de toute nuance, et on s'en sert pour faire avancer le même agenda : délégitimer l'Occident, ses frontières, ses institutions, sa culture. Quand une cause s'essouffle, on passe à la suivante. Le climat hier, la Palestine aujourd'hui, les lycées demain. Les drapeaux changent mais l'ennemi désigné reste le même.  Un projet politique se juge à ses résultats, pas à ses slogans. Après trente ans de ce récit, le bilan est clair. On a eu une immigration massive qu'il était interdit de questionner, et une insécurité que les gens vivent dans leur rue pendant qu'on leur explique que c'est un « sentiment ». Des territoires entiers ont décroché de la République. Les classes moyennes paient tout et se font traiter de racistes dès qu'elles le disent. Ceux qui portent ce discours n'en subissent jamais les conséquences. Ce sont toujours les autres qui paient l'addition.  Il faut appeler ce projet par son nom : c'est la continuation du communisme par d'autres moyens. Gramsci l'avait théorisé depuis sa cellule dans les années 30. En Occident, on ne prend pas le pouvoir par la révolution, on le prend par la culture. On conquiert l'école, l'université, les médias, le monde associatif, et le jour où ces idées sont devenues le « bon sens », le pouvoir politique tombe tout seul. C'est l'hégémonie culturelle. La lutte des classes est devenue lutte des identités, et le prolétaire a été remplacé par le « dominé » du moment. Mais la mécanique est identique : diviser, culpabiliser, déconstruire.  Le problème pour eux, c'est que ça ne marche plus.  Cet écosystème d'ONG, de fondations comme l'Open Society de George Soros, d'institutions internationales et de médias qui financent et amplifient ces causes depuis des décennies est en train de perdre partout. Les peuples ont vu les résultats et ils votent contre, en Europe comme en Amérique. Le récit ne prend plus. Quand on en est réduit à envoyer Greta Thunberg applaudir des lycéens français, ce n'est plus une stratégie, c'est un aveu de faiblesse.  Greta peut être fière. Elle assiste à la fin d'une époque."

Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 on X - "French rioters are blasting the rap song “MRH” which glorifies a terrorist who executed a 3 year old French Jewish child.  Lyrics: “Like Mohamed Merah, dodging the cameras  at the Bataclan, I shot him with my eyes, manhunt, Salah Abdeslam.”  14 years ago Mohammed Merah broke into a Jewish school in the French town of Toulouse and executed a pair of 3 year old and 5 year old French Jewish boys.  He then chased an 8 year old Jewish girl named Myriam Monsonego.  Merah caught her by her hair and raised a gun to execute her. His gun jammed, so he changed weapons. He then shot the little girl in the head while filming the execution with his GoPro.  He later said that he carried out this crime to “uphold the honour of Islam.” He called it an act of revenge because “the Jews kill our brothers and sisters in Palestine.”  According to one of his brothers, Merah was raised in an "atmosphere of racism and hatred" in their Muslim family.  Merah's sister Souad later said, "I am proud of my brother. He fought until the end against the Jews, and all those who massacre Muslims, I detest them."  According to his brother, when Merah's body was brought home, members of the local terrorist community visited the family to praise his actions and they cried tears of joy. Their only regret was that Merah had not killed more Jews.  Merah was buried on 29 March 2012 in the Muslim section of the Cornebarrieu cemetery, near Toulouse. About 50 people attended, including the local imam.  The mayor of Toulouse at the time tried to block Mohammed Merah’s burial, so French President Nicolas Sarkozy stepped in to support the burial.  "He was French. Let him be buried and let's not have any arguments about it," Sarkozy said.  Now he is held up as a hero by French rioters."

Donald Trump Jail Tracker | Facebook - "The latest populist propaganda positions France as a warning of what America will become if we don’t reject socialism, immigration, and liberal democracy. But perhaps the real warning is something quite different. France is a functioning constitutional democracy facing genuine challenges involving immigration, economic pressures, extremism, and political polarization. Much like the United States. Yet increasingly, we’re being bombarded with images of France burning, claims of an imminent Islamist takeover, and warnings that Western civilization is collapsing. These messages rarely offer meaningful evidence or solutions. Instead, they offer fear, blame, and a convenient political enemy. Perhaps the most revealing aspect is the projection. People who fear losing cultural or political dominance can become convinced that others are plotting to dominate them. In trying to prevent that imagined future, they may become increasingly willing to impose their own vision of society through authoritarian means. And therein lies the irony. The very people warning us that foreign ideologies will destroy our freedom may be encouraging us to surrender democratic principles, religious tolerance, and constitutional protections in the name of preserving them. France’s problems deserve serious examination, not political exploitation. So do America’s. Perhaps the greatest threat to Western democracy isn’t that our societies are becoming too diverse, but that some of us are becoming too frightened of diversity to defend democracy itself. Are these warnings really about protecting our civilization, or are they revealing how easily fear can be used to undermine the very freedoms we claim to cherish?"
The same people who obsess endlessly over January 6th and Charlottesville support riots, looting and burning down historic buildings when it pushes the left wing agenda

nic carter on X - "the news will tell you that the left are protesting because "of insufficient school funding"   This is questionable at best. France has a massive welfare state. Gigantic. They do not lack for public sector expenditure.
- French public spending accounts for an almost incomprehensible 57.2% of GDP
- the French deficit is 5.1% of GDP and the debt to GDP ratio is 115%
- France spends more on education on both a relative and absolute basis than the EU average
France can't meaningfully increase public spending. they are maxed out. Their 10-year bond trades at a higher yield than Italy or Greece, historical basket cases. so, it's not about public spending. France is an insanely lavish welfare state to the point of serious dysfunction. what's it about then?"
No amount of public spending will ever be enough for left wingers, because they demand unlimited public spending

nic carter on X - "i think she's basically on the money.   my own synthesis is that it's a disparate coalition of loosely affiliated leftist groups brought together for one valid reason alongside a bunch of ... less valid ones
- primary motive: french fiscal chaos due to massive spending on seniors at the expense of the youth (valid)
- secondary motive: un-assimilated immigrants airing racial grievances against french society
- secondary motive: islamists engaging in a show of force and aiming to claim more sovereignty in a general campaign to carve out a share of governance in french society
- secondary motive: french kids that want an opportunity to feel self righteous for vague, indeterminate reasons, more of a social occasion. general antifa/green/pro palestine sympathies
- at the same time: opportunists taking advantage of the disorder to commit arson, theft, and loot
TLDR leftist omnicause"

Philippe Lemoine on X - "As usual, people are looking for deep reasons, but I think there isn't any for the most part and the real explanation is much more boring.  There is a very high level of general dissatisfaction in France at the moment, mostly due to anemic economic growth and inflation, especially with the price of gas. In addition, Macron has been in power for almost 10 years and is very unpopular, which only adds to general dissatisfaction.  The high school protests, although they were already fizzling out, have provided motivation for the left by fueling the hope that it could ride out that wave to energize its own protests.  So there was a fertile ground for protests, which are pretty common in France after summer. Still, while the protests were large, they were hardly impressive by French standards. What set them apart from traditional French social movements is how violent they were.  Contrary to popular mythology, French protests are not generally violent. France has a very strong protest and strike culture, but the meme about how we riots all the time is overdone.  Traditionally, protests are traditionally organized by unions, which coordinate with the authorities beforehand and have a security service that takes care of troublemakers during the protest.  This is why the violence always starts toward the end of the protests, after the official demonstration has disbanded and people begin to scatter, because that's when it's harder for the police to control the situation.  Protests have increasingly led to violence in recent years because they have become more spontaneous and are more often organized by people on social media, but also and relatedly because increasingly far-left groups and children of immigrants opportunistically join them to cause mayhem and loot.  I keep seeing a lot of people who are depicting those kids as "Islamists" and ideologically motivated actors, but I think it's a complete misreading of the situation in my opinion. This isn't an "Islamist uprising" or whatever nonsense people are talking about.  Their actions are opportunistic and driven by a nihilistic culture that is very similar to what you see in Black ghettos in the US, where anti-social behavior is totally normalized, with an added Islamic veneer due to their family background.  This nihilism and their family background makes them susceptible to Islamist indoctrination, which is why terrorists were almost always delinquent before they turned to religion, but most of them aren't ideologues and those who are don't loot stores.  As I explained before, the police often don't intervene because they are overwhelmed and they have instructions from the government not to, because politicians are terrified that if they do a kid will be killed and they will have full-blown race riots on their hands.  So what they do instead is contain the violence geographically and arrest the most violent participants later at home, when the risk that the cops will kill one of them is low, using video/photo evidence.  Eventually things will fizzle out, in part because the violence will discredit the movement and actually make it easier for the government to deal with it, but this tactic is very costly since we are effectively accepting that every now and then far-left activists and immigrant thugs will just burn and loot while the police watch.  The problem from the government's point of view is that, if they use repression by telling the cops to break skulls, they will kill some of the kids and this will result in a massive backlash, leading to more protests and probably even more violence.  I think we need to hand out serious prison time to protesters who are caught engaging in violence to deter this kind of shit, but the government has a very limited ability to do so, because justice is independent, courts are full of left-wing judges who refuse to do that, they are already overwhelmed with cases, prisons are full and we are broke.  So there isn't one single explanation, it's just a combination of factors, including random stuff that nobody could predict. The context explains why something like that *can* happen, but it doesn't explain why it happens when it does. Again it's probably random for the most part.  It would take years to solve the problem even if we started now, which we won't because our politics is completely broken, because it would require getting our budget in order, implementing reasonable economic policies, fixing our immigration and justice system, etc. We are cooked to be honest."

Philippe Lemoine on X - "Just a few hours after Macron spoke on TV about the situations, promising that the government would be inflexible with people who engage in violence, groups of looters are freely roaming Paris and breaking into stores.  There are even videos where you see them breaking into residential buildings and the police seem totally overwhelmed and in many places are nowhere to be seen. This is completely surreal and I don't think anything like that has ever happened before."

Philippe Lemoine on X - "This thread is at best clueless and at worst deliberately misleading.  In general, it's starting to piss me off to see people use the tired cliché of French rioting to pretend that it was just another Saturday in France and that it has nothing to do with immigration (as Hayes is doing in the tweet I'm screenshotting below, which was reacting to Mair's thread), so let me explain.  Yes, the vast majority of the people who protested yesterday were white, nobody serious is denying that. It was a typical protest about the cost of living, which happens almost every year in France after summer.  The protests were larger this year because 1) the left was energized by the high school protests from a few weeks ago and was hoping that it would be able to ride out that wave, 2) the price of gas has increased a lot because of the war and people are pissed and 3) Macron has been president for almost 10 years, he is very unpopular and there is a presidential election in a few months.  The protests themselves were generally peaceful, which is not surprising. Again, despite the meme about how French people are constantly rioting, French protests traditionally don't lead to a lot of violence. That's because they are organized by unions who coordinate with the authorities and have a security service that deals with trouble makers.  The violence doesn't come from the mass of protesters, who in the overwhelming majority of cases are just left-wing French normies with inchoate demands about the cost of living, Macron and public spending, but are law-abiding and would never burn a car in a million years.  It comes from 1) ultra-left groups and 2) gangs of Black and Arab hoodlums who opportunistically join the protests, typically toward the end as they are disbanding and protesters start to scatter, to cause mayhem and loot. The former are relatively small in numbers, very organized and basically professional activists, while the latter are much more numerous, not ideological and just take part in the protests because they think rioting is fun and they can steal shit.  Anyone who denies that the violence and looting is overwhelmingly committed by children of immigrants is either clueless or lying to you. Basically everyone in France knows it and, at this point, even left-wing journalists often don't even bother denying it anymore and just blame that on racism.  Sure, there are also some white people who loot stores because there is also a white underclass in France and it would be surprising if this didn't happen in protests that involved hundreds of thousands, but even when they do they are rarely the initiators of this kind of violence and probably would never have done it had Black and Arab youths not initiated it.  Anyone who has ever witnessed this kind of events in France knows that and, even if you don't live in France, you just have to watch videos to see it. It really takes an incredible amount of bad faith to look at the hundreds of videos showing looters, almost all of whom are Black or Arab, then cherry-pick to find the handful of white people and pretend it's not overwhelmingly a phenomenon driven by children of immigrants.  Obviously, not every Black or Arab is a looter and many of them were among the people who protested peacefully, but everyone with a brain understands that and it doesn't change the fact that almost every looter is Black or Arab. The only reason to bring up this obvious fact is to divert attention from the fact that immigration played a massive role in creating this situation.  Same thing for people who are showing photos of peaceful protests to argue that most of the protesters are white. Again, that's obviously true, but also completely irrelevant and dishonest if you're using that fact to argue that immigration has nothing to do with the violence.  It's different for rioters who engage in confrontation with the police, because again those are far-left activists and are generally white, but they are also not very numerous although they play a disproportionately important role in initiating the violence because they are very organized.  But if the police didn't also have to deal with a much larger number of immigrant hoodlums, which ties up a lot of manpower, it would be much easier to deal with anarchists and the kind of things we have seen yesterday would be much less likely to happen.  So no, looting or even rioting is not part of French culture, at least if by that you mean that it's behavior typical French protesters regularly engage in. It's overwhelmingly done by a small minority of professional far-left activists and a much larger number of Black and Arab hoodlums who opportunistically piggyback on traditional French social movements.  The only social movement during which regular French people have engaged in serious violence in recent decades was the yellow vests movement in 2018 and it's precisely because this was so unusual that Macron was so scared at the time. When people make the kind of sarcastic comment Hayes made, about the supposed French culture of rioting and looting, the only thing they are proving is that they have no idea what they're talking about.  Yes, I know that we took the Bastille in 1789 and that French people engaged in various insurrections in the subsequent century, but that's pretty much completely irrelevant to what is happening right now. If you want to go back even further in time and look really smart, you could even mention the Bagaudae in 3rd century AD Gaul and talk about how it was a proto-communist movement that shows how deeply ingrained rioting is in French culture.  But if you think that bringing up that stuff to explain current events makes you smart, you should think again. It just makes you intellectually lazy at best and intellectually dishonest at worst, although to be clear those are not mutually inconsistent possibilities."

Israel Supporters תומכי ישראל | Facebook - "France should not attack innocent Paristinian students with tear gas, water cannons, or grenades. This is genocide. We urge a diplomatic solution and demand an immediate ceasefire by France!"

Poverty Not Causing Crime

Since this is at least the second time this week I've gotten this kind of cope from left wingers:

A: "Believing that "people wouldn't do crimes if their basic needs were met" while also believing that "greedy rich people are stealing from everyone" never registers to the people who say this *** as inherently contradictory."

B: When you say “believing that people wouldn’t do crimes if their basic needs were met” you make it sound like it’s an opinion. It’s not. It’s a statistical truth. Of course there will always be people born greedy and willing to do crime. Sometimes they’re born in poverty. Sometimes they’re born into wealth. It’s really not that hard to understand.

Me: Too bad the evidence tells us poverty doesn't cause crime. Left wingers just keep lying

B: what evidence?

Me: The Impacts of Guaranteed Basic Income on Crime Perpetration and Victimization

"This paper provides the first experimental evidence on the impact of providing a guaranteed basic income on criminal perpetration and victimization. We analyze a nationwide randomized controlled trial that provided 2,000 unemployed individuals in Finland with an unconditional monthly payment of 560 Euros for two years (2017-2018), while 173,222 comparable individuals remained under the existing social safety net. Using comprehensive administrative data on police reports and district court trials, we estimate precise zero effects on criminal perpetration and victimization. Point estimates are small and statistically insignificant across all crime categories. Our confidence intervals rule out reductions in perpetration of 5 percent or more for crime reports and 10 percent or more for criminal charges."

Does Wealth Inhibit Criminal Behavior? Evidence from Swedish Lottery Winners and Their Children

"There is a well-established negative gradient between economic status and crime, but its underlying causal mechanisms are not well understood. We use data on four Swedish lotteries matched to data on criminal convictions to gauge the causal effect of financial windfalls on player’s own crime and their children’s delinquency. We estimate a positive but statistically insignificant effect of lottery wealth on players’ own conviction risk. Our estimates allow us to rule out effects one fifth as large as the cross-sectional gradient between income and crime. We also estimate a less precise null effect of parental lottery wealth on child delinquency."

Childhood family income, adolescent violent criminality and substance misuse: quasi-experimental total population study

"There were no associations between childhood family income and subsequent violent criminality and substance misuse once we had adjusted for unobserved familial risk factors."

B: I’m going to give you a free piece of advice. When you’re trying to argue with someone and use Google, cross check your sources. I’m not gonna do it for you, because I want you to learn from this.

If you have a strong opinion about something, research the opposition of that opinion so you are informed about what you are arguing against. Don’t just ask Google to reinforce what you already believe.

If you do that, we can have a logical discussion. Don’t just throw out bullshit studies that can be easily dismissed. It’s a waste of everybody’s time.

Me: Yes, left wingers love to dismiss peer reviewed research that they disagree with. Cope

B: …really?

Me: Yes you so eloquently laid out an argument for why the multiple studies I presented refute your claim that I am unable to respond to your multiple points engaging with the argument

Lol

B: is it worth my time to look up the multiple studies and real life examples that prove you wrong? Or are you just going to shrug it off as fake.

Because you had Google at the ready to reinform your position. You don’t even care how incredulous those sources are. I don’t think there’s any facts I can throw at you to change your mind. Unfortunately the best I can do is bully you and pray it sinks in that you need to be better informed. You need to learn how to research before you shoot your mouth off about things you know nothing about.

Me: The irony is off the scales here

B: I can tell you know you’re in the wrong here. Do I really need to point out why? You can tap out now. 

Links - 31st October 2026 (1 - China's 'Peaceful' Rise: Taiwan)

Melissa Chen on X - "In case you missed it:   China just launched unprecedented military “drills” around Taiwan. These are de facto incursions on the self-ruled island, involving a record 153 Chinese military aircraft, dozens of navy + coastguard vessels, and cyber-attacks.   It surrounded the main island and outer territories, simulating a blockade and practicing an attack.  And then the Chinese Coast Guard released the following graphic that shows a satellite image of Taiwan’s main island, and a line of arrows tracking around it in the shape of a HEART.   Accompanying script – in the traditional Chinese characters used by Taiwan but not by the mainland – read:   “Hi my sweetheart” and “The patrol is in the shape of loving you.”  I once heard Peter Thiel say in an interview that China is a “weirdly autistic” and “profoundly uncharismatic” country.   This attempt at lovebombing Taiwan (with the full intent of “reunification”) after simulating actual bombing and violence, perfectly illustrates his point."
From 2024

Think China can already take Taiwan easily? Think again. - "China wants the world to believe that it has already decisively won and that no one can do anything about it. But looking past the propaganda, China’s real military strength, while dangerous, is less impressive and more brittle than Beijing would have the world believe. Nevertheless, China’s influence campaign could be effective if it reinforces what China watchers may already tend to believe. For example, the Associated Press has accidentally used a doctored photo from Chinese state media of PLA military exercises. The narrative filters out from there. Many newspapers, television, social media, and academia now all tell the same tale of Chinese overmatch. In short: It has all the doctrinal hallmarks of effective deception. Russia ran a similar playbook prior to its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, depicting its military as an overpowering force. And while Russia is and remains an existential threat to Ukrainian sovereignty, the Russian façade of invincibility was quickly exposed by fierce and sustained Ukrainian resistance against a foe with significant materiel and numerical advantages. It’s another riff on the story of David versus Goliath. What China and Russia fail to remember is that in that story, David wins... China certainly has the air and maritime strength to establish a blockade around Taiwan, but maintaining one could become strategically tenuous for Beijing if it upends China’s economy, especially its international trade. It is also operationally tenuous due to factors such as logistical sustainment, maintenance, and airspace control and coordination. Blockade demonstrations such as Joint Sword 2024A are incredibly costly and fully stress Chinese capabilities, despite their temporary nature. A full, protracted blockade over time will stress the Chinese military system at a higher order of magnitude, making sustainment suspect and vulnerable to disruption. Should the United States and its allies intervene militarily, the “patrol boxes” vaunted on Chinese diagrams of their latest drill could just as easily become “kill boxes” for Taiwanese and US forces to target Chinese ships, especially those off of the Island’s eastern coast. Chinese power projection from its east coast to Taiwan’s west coast is relatively straightforward, and China is likely to maintain superiority along such lines of operation. But Taiwan’s east coast is more easily supported by allies and partners, who could intervene from the territory of Japan and the Philippines or via air and naval power from the Pacific. While China would likely maintain military dominance in the Taiwan Strait, maintaining it east of Taiwan is a fool’s errand. Policymakers should also highlight the sheer difficulty of a cross-strait attack. An amphibious assault from China into Taiwan would be larger and more complex than the Allied invasion of Normandy in World War II, requiring joint planning and coordination that the bifurcated and politically divided services of the PLA lack. A more apt analogy might be the failed Allied Gallipoli campaign of World War I, because China would likely lack the ability to achieve operational surprise and would be sailing into deadly waters filled with mines and munitions. And while Chinese troops may eventually make it to Taiwan’s shores, they would likely find themselves stranded and contained. Establishing a lodgment is one thing; securing and expanding it is another. A 2023 report by Mark F. Cancian, Matthew Cancian, and Eric Heginbotham identifies the many difficulties China would face in establishing a lodgment and other approaches that the United States and Taiwan could pursue to contain such a lodgment or prevent its establishment. The weaknesses inherent within an authoritarian, communist system only exacerbate these operational factors."
From 2024

Suicide Reveals Taiwanese Army Dangerously Unprepared for Chinese Invasion - "not only is the Taiwanese military facing a serious shortage of soldiers and an entirely dysfunctional reserve system, as my previous reporting for Foreign Policy revealed, half of its tanks may not be able to run—and even fewer have functional weapons. These failures are costing lives even before China fires a single shot. As Taiwanese politicians showcase flashy U.S. weapons bought with taxpayers’ money, the logistics inside the military remain so abysmal that a young army officer killed himself after being pressured to buy repair parts out of his own pocket... the 269th Mechanized Infantry Brigade isn’t some rear-echelon unit but a major combat formation strategically stationed around the outskirt of Taoyuan City, northern Taiwan. It is expected to bear the brunt of ground fighting to stop any invading Chinese troops from reaching the basin of Taipei, Taiwan’s capital. If the 269th is in such bad material shape, how about the rest of the Taiwanese military? Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) does not officially disclose how many “major combat platforms” are in a mission-capable state. During computer-simulated exercises such as the annual Han Kuang war game, however, the military simply assumed its units would have 90 percent fighting strength in terms of personnel and at least 85 percent equipment as mission-capable. “Those numbers are worthless. They have no basis in reality,” James Huang, a retired army lieutenant colonel who has become a prolific military writer and a vocal critic of Taiwan’s defense ministry... On Taiwan’s internet forums, there is no shortage of netizens claiming to be veterans, who complain about the misfortune of having served in logistics and armory jobs. They write horror stories detailing not just buying parts with own money, but also how they were forced to engage in practices like writing fake paperwork and maintenance logs, hiding “surplus” parts from inspectors, conducting hasty and substandard repair tasks, even stealing parts from other units in preparation for equipment inspection or exercise. A Taiwanese army master sergeant, who remains in active service and has long experience in logistics units, confirmed many of these accounts... “If we are talking about something that resembles U.S. standards, I would say 30 percent of the tanks are in running conditions and have functional weapons.” The problem doesn’t stop there, the master sergeant explained, because ammunition, fuel, and field repair resources are also almost always in chronic shortage unless a unit is about to participate in some major exercise... Chang Han-ching, a retired navy captain and a researcher for the Taiwan Center for International Strategic Studies, believes it was the Taiwanese military’s hasty yet critically flawed downsizing that hollowed out its logistics. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Taiwan committed itself to cutting the force size from half a million strong to fewer than 200,000. Much of the changes were planned by the Office of the General Staff for Operations and Planning of Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, where Chang was a staffer. “Politicians wanted to shrink the size of the military to shorten and eventually get rid of conscription, the top generals obliged. Given rising threats from China, cutting combat units is out of the question. Guess where they cut instead? Yes, logistics, of all things. As if leaving combat units unsupported will do any good.”... The root cause of problems, therefore, appears to go far deeper than just broken tanks and not enough mechanics. Interviewees suggested the answer must lies somewhere between the military’s dysfunctional organizational culture, lack of civilian audit and oversight, and an ineffectual leadership (both military and political) that seems to give little thought to preparing troops for actual war... “Their underlying thinking, based on my observation of the policies, is that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has grown to be too strong for us to fight militarily anyway. They think Taiwan should just focus on putting up a good show of being tough, buy enough U.S. weapons for display, and pray that Americans come to our rescue when the Chinese call our bluff, which hopefully wouldn’t happen,” Chang said... “Speaking strictly from my heart as a retired officer I would never doubt—not even for one second, that the mass majority of our soldiers and officer corps are dedicated to defending the country, and Taiwan can expect every one of them to do their duty on the battlefield—however much equipment is working,” Yu said."
From 2020

Richard Hanania on X - "American experts on China go to Taiwan to encourage the country to defend itself against China. They're taken out to ice cream by retired Taiwanese naval officers, who tell the Americans that Taiwan doesn't want to fight and will basically surrender."
Will Taiwan Just Give Up? - The Atlantic - "Even a few years ago, pandering to China would have been a losing strategy for politicians in Taiwan. The ruling government of President Lai Ching-te, whose Democratic Progressive Party has been in power since 2016, has urged the U.S. to strengthen Taiwan’s defenses in anticipation of a Chinese attack. Cheng and her Nationalists have done the opposite. Their control of Parliament has allowed them to block defense spending, taking particular care to stall the domestic production of drones and other inexpensive weapons that Ukraine has used to great effect against Russia... “Drones should not be used as weapons,” she said with a smile, “but they should be used to deliver bubble tea.”"

China is too weak to invade Taiwan successfully - "invading an island nation like Taiwan is a very different proposition to Russia’s assault on Ukraine, which has mainly consisted of sending columns of tanks and troops across the land border of its neighbour, supported by artillery, missiles and fighter aircraft. The Ukrainian military, moreover, has only enjoyed a modest ability to defend itself from Russian aggression, as demonstrated by Kyiv’s constant appeals for Nato countries to provide more sophisticated weaponry and supplies. By contrast, Taiwan possesses its own well-trained air force, batteries of state-of-the-art US Patriot air defence systems which are more than a match for China’s new generation J-20 fighter aircraft, as well as boasting a highly motivated army. Taiwan is not Ukraine, and the Chinese military is a long way from being able to mount the type of large scale, and complex, amphibious landing operation that would be necessary to take control of the island. For, despite the vast sums the Chinese Communist Party has spent developing its forces, the country is still playing catch-up in terms of acquiring the strength to challenge America’s military supremacy. The development of China’s two new aircraft carriers is a case in point. While naval powers like the US and Britain have been building this highly specialised military capability for the better part of a century, China only acquired its first carrier in 2012, and is still on a steep learning curve when it comes to making optimal use of them. Another important consideration is that the Chinese military has not been directly involved in a major war since the Korean conflict in the early 1950s, so it lacks the real-time war-fighting experience acquired by the US and its allies in combat theatres ranging from Afghanistan to the Falklands... From Taiwan’s perspective, the most likely threat to its survival is likely to come in the form of political instability similar to the domestic unrest that hastened the demise of democratic rule in Hong Kong. For this reason, many Taiwanese are more concerned about China’s constant efforts to subvert their democracy through support for pro-Beijing political activists and cyber attacks than the possibility of a full-scale Chinese invasion."
From 2022

America’s race to save Taiwan from China relies on friends and neighbours - "Yonaguni, which is part of Japan’s southern Okinawa prefecture, is also the closest territory to Taiwan that the United States, as a Japanese ally, can access – a factor that has become increasingly important as China ramps up its military pressure against Taiwan. Experts agree that US involvement in a war between China and Taiwan would be decisive – without American support it is unlikely that Taiwan would remain autonomous. However, thousands of miles away, the US would be at a disadvantage, unless it can make use of outposts in the region, including Yonaguni. It’s part of a broader militarisation effort that has swept across the Indo-Pacific, from Japan down to the Philippines, as the region prepares for the worst... Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi then provoked fury in Beijing after telling parliament that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a response from Tokyo. Shortly after, a Chinese diplomat in Japan intimated that she should be decapitated... the US decision to intervene would ultimately come down to three factors. The first would be how the conflict came about: how did China attack and what justification does it give? It’s likely that China will “characterise something Taiwan does as being politically provocative as an excuse to take action”, said Mr Schriver. Second, the US would closely follow how Taiwan responded in the first few days after the attack. “If Taiwan is not sufficiently resisting the attack and the invasion, if they’re making move to capitulate politically, because of how we’re posturing ourselves, in other words not on the island and not in an alliance, the first few days would be absolutely critical and would inform our decision making,” explained Mr Schriver. The final factor would come down to what else was happening around the world at the time and “how much are we stretched”... Gilbert Teodoro, the Philippines’ defence secretary... has said for years that the Philippines monitors “daily” for the possibility of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan... With its neighbours and partners preparing for the worst, Taiwan has also been building up its own defence capabilities. Earlier this year, Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s president, announced a £30bn supplementary defence budget to protect the country against the rising threat from China. It follows a previous announcement that Taiwan would be raising its defence spending to 3.3 per cent of GDP by next year with the goal of reaching 5 per cent by 2030. Approximately a third of the estimated £23.7bn budget is likely to go towards a new multi-layered air defence system known as the T-Dome, which Mr Lai announced earlier this year."

Kareem Rifai 🌐 on X - "Why is Beijing in such a panic? China knows that an American defense of Taiwan practically necessitates Japanese involvement. Without the use of US bases in Japan, US fighter/attack aircraft can't effectively participate in a cross-strait war.
For conflicts not involving Japan, the US needs permission from the Japanese government to engage its bases.  Japanese PM Takaichi said that a Taiwan invasion by China would be a "survival-threatening situation" last week. You can connect the dots!"
Robotbeat🗽 ➐ on X - "This. Look at any wargame of Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and typically the only scenarios where it goes well for China is if US are not allowed to use bases in Japan. That’s also why you also see the push to characterize US military bases in Japan as “imperialism.” Obvious psywar"

How China plans to land the world’s largest army on Taiwan - "China has one of the most active shipbuilding industries in the world. Experts estimate that its shipbuilding capacity is at least 200 times greater than the United States’, despite its much smaller military budget ($246bn in 2025 against $850bn). Today, China has an estimated 405 warships to the US Navy’s 295, and is on track to have at least 30 more by 2030. In fact, a recent report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) found that, while most of China’s defence firms had been losing revenue, the one area where revenue was rising was shipbuilding... Today, China’s defence priorities are mostly maritime. These include disputes over islands in the South China Sea and its claims over Taiwan, which is across a nearly 100-mile wide body of water... While the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy has hundreds of warships, these alone would not be sufficient for an invasion of Taiwan, said Tom Shugart, a former US submarine officer and senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). He said: “There’s no question whatsoever that if you just look at the grey-painted PLA Navy amphibious assault shipping, it is nowhere near enough to do an invasion.” Instead, China has maximised its dual-use shipbuilding, where civilian vessels are kitted out with military technology. Since 2015, all civilian shipbuilders have been required to ensure that any new ships could be used by the military in the event of an emergency... Alexander Huang, the chairman of the Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies, has spent the past 10 years simulating different ways China could attack Taiwan. Based on his research, he sees two possible paths. The first begins with a cyber attack as well as moves against critical infrastructure to “kill Taiwan’s communication control and command control systems”. This strategy would seek to “divide or weaken Taiwan for a swift victory”, said Mr Huang. The second starts with a “maritime quarantine”, which would gradually block Taiwan’s energy supply and communication networks, to cut the island off from the rest of the world. Unlike a blockade, which would be enforced by the military, a quarantine would use coastguard and civilian ships. As an island, Taiwan relies on imports for its energy and food, and a quarantine or blockade could be disastrous. Experts told The Telegraph that its current energy supply – which includes liquefied natural gas, renewable production and coal resources – could sustain the island for about 40 days. A major military operation against Taiwan would likely take four times as long, and, said Mr Huang, China would effectively “squeeze Taiwan until it surrenders”. Beijing has been practising this type of coercion for years. It has routinely deployed hundreds of ships and planes around Taiwan as part of its “grey zone” pressure – activities that fall short of open warfare but aim to demonstrate strength in the lead-up to an actual conflict... The Taiwan Strait is 110 miles wide, but with strong winds and high waves, it is a difficult body of water to navigate. Monsoons and typhoons – especially in summer – make it all the more treacherous... Even with the barges, some experts, including a former defence official who spoke to The Telegraph on the condition of anonymity, were sceptical of China’s ability to land troops on Taiwan. They believe that changing sea levels and commercial construction, among other factors, along Taiwan’s coast have made virtually all of the beaches untenable for a landing operation."

Taiwan’s £7.5tn secret weapon is disintegrating - "Every country in the world relies on these chips, including China, which despite threatening to “reunify” Taiwan by force, imports nearly half of the island’s semiconductors.  Economists warn that an invasion of Taiwan would cost the world’s economy £7.5tn – far more than the cost of the Russian invasion of Ukraine or the Covid-19 pandemic.  Analysts argue that this very fact would act as a key deterrence against Beijing following through on its threats, as China knows if it does invade, its economy would take a direct hit from the fallout.  Known as the “silicon shield”, the theory argues that Taiwan’s semiconductor industry offers it a de facto security blanket, which would stop China from invading – both because of its own dependency on the chips and the US’s, which could come to Taiwan’s defence... leading Taiwan companies within the semiconductor industry have been moving production sites to countries such as China and the US... Taiwan produces approximately 60 to 70 per cent of all the world’s semiconductors and more than 95 per cent of the advanced chips... Beijing’s increasingly hostile rhetoric towards Taiwan and its routine shows of force toward the island has spooked foreign governments and semiconductor customers.  Kharis Templeman, a research fellow on Taiwan at the US-based Hoover Institution, explained that the Covid-19 pandemic served as a wake-up call for many companies reliant on chips from Taiwan and had to scramble overnight when their supply was interrupted.  It offered an insight into what could happen if China launched an attack against Taiwan, which could result in the supply of chips being permanently cut off... TSMC has kept an insurance policy.  The company has made sure that only its mature chips will be manufactured overseas. The production of advanced chips will remain in Taiwan... Experts and those within the industry are also worried about Beijing’s habit of stealing innovations from other countries.  “First, they welcome your business. Second, they look at your technology. Third, they build a competitor that can beat you. Then, fourth, they kick you out of the country,” said the engineer."

Rutaso.Japan🇯🇵🐶 on X - "Your argument contains several major historical and legal inaccuracies. Here is a point-by-point rebuttal.
⸻
1. “🇹🇼Taiwan has always been an inseparable part of China.” This statement is historically false. For most of its history, Taiwan was
•an island inhabited by its indigenous peoples,
•later governed by Spain and the Netherlands,
•then ruled by the Zheng regime (effectively an independent state).
In other words, Taiwan spent far more time outside any Chinese rule than under it.
⸻
2. “The Yuan dynasty governed Taiwan.” The Yuan dynasty was the Mongol Empire, not a Chinese nation-state. If you claim “Yuan = China,” then Mongolia, large parts of Central Asia, and Korea would all become “ancient Chinese territories.” This logic collapses instantly.
⸻
3. “Qing ruled Taiwan for about 200 years, so it is Chinese.”  The Qing dynasty was a Manchu empire, not a Han Chinese state.  The fact that Taiwan was once governed by the Qing does not mean it was part of a continuous Chinese nation-state. Empires shift borders constantly. International law does not treat historical empires as evidence of eternal sovereignty.
⸻
4. “The Cairo Declaration returned Taiwan to China.” This is the most serious error. The Cairo Declaration:
•was not signed,
•was not ratified,
•was not a treaty,
•and therefore has zero binding force under international law.
It was a political statement — nothing more. China is one of the few governments that pretends it has legal weight.
⸻
5. The legally binding decision came from the San Francisco Peace Treaty (1951). This is the decisive point in international law. The treaty states only: Japan renounces sovereignty over Taiwan. It does not say Taiwan belongs to China. Not once. Not anywhere. This means the final status of Taiwan was left undetermined. China’s sovereignty over Taiwan has never been legally confirmed.
⸻
6. “The PRC replaced the ROC in the UN, therefore Taiwan is China.” Another major misunderstanding. UN Resolution 2758 dealt with China’s representation, not territorial sovereignty. It did not declare that Taiwan is part of the PRC. It did not settle the sovereignty issue. It only said: “Who represents China at the UN?” This has no legal effect on Taiwan’s political status.
⸻
Your claims rely on
•historical distortion,
•misuse of international law, and
•political narratives presented as facts.
From a historical and legal perspective, Taiwan has never been confirmed as part of the PRC."

China Building Military on 'Scale Not Seen Since WWII:' US Admiral - "China's rapid military build-up is more expansive than anything seen since World War II, which means it's on track with its 2027 goal to be ready for a Taiwan invasion, said US Navy Adm. John Aquilino.  "All indications point to the PLA meeting President Xi Jinping's directive to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027," Aquilino wrote in a testimony to the US Armed Services House Committee.  "Furthermore, the PLA's actions indicate their ability to meet Xi's preferred timeline to unify Taiwan with mainland China by force if directed," added the admiral, the outgoing head of the US Indo-Pacific Command... Aquilino wrote in his testimony that of the three main US concerns in the region — Russia, China, and North Korea — China is the "only country that has the capability, capacity, and intent to upend the international order.""
Time to double down on diversity, because it makes the US military stronger

U.S. Deterrence in Taiwan Is Failing - "“My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” U.S. Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan wrote in a January memo to officers in the Air Mobility Command. The memo, which promptly leaked to reporters, warned that the United States and China were barreling toward a conflict over Taiwan. The U.S. Defense Department quickly distanced itself from Minihan’s blunt assessment. Yet the general wasn’t saying anything in private that military and civilian officials weren’t already saying in public...   In 1972, Chinese leader Mao Zedong told U.S. President Richard Nixon that Beijing could wait 100 years to reclaim Taiwan. China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, is not so patient. He has said the island’s awkward status cannot be passed from generation to generation; he has reportedly ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be ready for action by 2027... Recent investments aside, the United States reportedly lacks enough anti-ship missiles and other munitions to blunt the first Chinese attack, let alone keep fighting after a few days or weeks of high-intensity combat. Amphibious ships, attack submarines, and other critical platforms are all too scarce. Rapidly surging production of any of these capabilities is difficult, thanks to decades of disinvestment in the defense industrial base—and because even now, defense spending is roughly as low, relative to GDP, as at any time since World War II. As aging ships, planes, and submarines are retired in the late 2020s, in fact, U.S. firepower in the Western Pacific will decline, just as China’s current military reforms reach fruition"
Left wingers still claim the US spends too much on defense

War Game Finds U.S., Taiwan Can Defend Against a Chinese Invasion - WSJ - "But the cost would be high: Taiwan’s economy would be shattered, and the U.S. military so battered that it would take years to rebuild, with repercussions for America’s global power."

Taiwan's Army Is a Hollow Shell After the End of Conscription From 2020

Links - 30th October 2026 (2 - Brazil 2026 Election)

Gina Milan on X - "I see a lot of people, including the left-wing media and Democrats, running their mouths about Bolsonaro, calling him corrupt and accusing him of money laundering. LOL. Yet none of them want to talk about the actual truth about Lula and the corruption charges he was convicted of.  So let’s talk about that.  Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was convicted of corruption and money laundering in Operation Car Wash, Brazil’s biggest graft scandal.  In the Guarujá triplex case, OAS handed him a renovated beachfront apartment as a hidden bribe worth roughly R$2.2 million, tied to Petrobras contracts. In 2017, Judge Sergio Moro convicted him of passive corruption and money laundering and sentenced him to 9 years and 6 months. The appeals court unanimously upheld the conviction and increased his sentence to over 12 years.  He spent 580 days in prison.  In the Atibaia ranch case, he was convicted again for renovations worth about R$1 million, paid for by OAS and Odebrecht, at a property he and his family used. His sentence? 12 years and 11 months.  Then, in 2021, while he was out of office, the Supreme Court overturned the convictions on procedural grounds. The court ruled that the Curitiba court lacked jurisdiction and that Moro was biased. The cases never went to a new trial on the facts, and the prosecutions ultimately ended because of statute-of-limitations issues.  After slithering back into the presidency in 2023, Lula appointed his own personal defense lawyer from those same Car Wash cases, Cristiano Zanin, to the Supreme Court.  His own defense lawyer. On the Supreme Court. Ironic, isn’t it?  And that same lawyer is the one who granted the 2-hour extension for voting in the 2026 runoff, where Lula magically gained enough votes to win.  So the next time you see the media and the left gushing about how wonderful this man is and portraying him as a martyr, LOL, remember the truth.  Lula is the actual dictator thug who was convicted on corruption charges.  Not Flávio Bolsonaro."

Gina Milan on X - "Let me break down the Flavio Bolsonaro situation and why he is in the United States just hours after the election…  First, they imprisoned his father. They sentenced Jair Bolsonaro to 27 years and placed him under house arrest after he challenged the 2022 results and was accused of plotting to overturn the election.  In this recent election, Bolsonaro was ahead. Lula and his thugs, including his former corruption lawyer, who now sits on Brazil’s Supreme Court, requested a two-hour extension that miraculously produced enough votes for Lula to win. That extension added only about 35,000 votes, roughly 0.03 percent of the total, which is nowhere near enough to explain Lula’s final margin of roughly 4.4 million votes.  Bolsonaro immediately challenged the election because anyone who is not a communist and has a brain could see that the election was stolen from him if they actually paid attention to what was happening. President Trump called the outcome a rigged election and said it looked very bad.  Hours later, they accused him of trying to overturn the election, EXACTLY as they did to his father, and accused him of inciting “violence” in the streets. Then they prohibited him from leaving the country, even though he had committed no crime, and canceled his passport to make sure he could not leave.  Fortunately, Bolsonaro had been working with the United States. They extracted him in an undisclosed operation before the authorities could throw him in prison just like his father.  Meanwhile, while ALL of this is unfolding, Lula’s little tranny lover, Erika Hilton, who is a “Congresswoman,” is publicly calling for the Brazilian government to seize Bolsonaro’s and his wife’s assets and freeze ALL their bank accounts.  DOES THAT SOUND NORMAL TO YOU? A man challenges an election, and suddenly the Brazilian government is coming after him for doing exactly that.  THIS IS COMMUNISM.  So while you see Democrats across our country congratulating Lula on his victory, including Alex Soros, the biggest demon of them all, understand exactly what you are looking at. These are the people cheering on a government that is targeting its political opposition. They are the enemy, and they will attempt the SAME thing against a Republican here in America, just as they did to Trump.  This is EXACTLY why it is essential to vote RED and make absolutely sure our country NEVER becomes what Brazil has become.  ONCE YOU GO COMMUNIST, YOU CAN NEVER GET OUT OF IT."
Only one week ago, left wingers were claiming it was wrong to prosecute your political opponents. Of course, that's only true when left wing politicians like Ilhan Omar are being prosecuted. The speed at which they flip flop is impressive - especially now that they've gone 360 degrees already (i.e. flip flopped twice)

Mike Benz on X - "The Lula regime is now going around seizing the passports of every major figure associated with the political party that beat him in the general election 3 weeks ago."
Left Wingers are celebrating the defeat of "fascism". Left wingers always project

Arturo Dominguez on X - "Flávio Bolsonaro has reportedly fled Brazil. He plans to claim political asylum when he lands in the U.S. He's most likely headed to Miami, where far-right figures from Latin America love to go because they have support."
David J. Bier on X - "So the US is going to parole someone here to claim ASYLUM!? Gotta love it"
Daniel Heneghan on X - "This is a legitimate asylum request unlike a married african muslim with two children claiming to be fleeing gay persecution.   Within minutes of the election the renegade and corrupt judge issued an arrest warrant for Bolsinaro, no charge, no evidence of any wrongdoing, but this is just what leftist/libertarians do."

Gerry Callahan on X - "If Bolsonaro were an illiterate Somali scammer or Haitian gang banger, Democrats would demand Trump let him in country. But he’s white and conservative and genuinely persecuted, so they want him to die in a Brazilian prison."

Congressman Rich McCormick, MBA MD on X - "I am deeply concerned by reports that Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Flávio Bolsonaro to surrender his passports following Brazil’s presidential election.  Allegations of election irregularities, including changes to voting hours, raise serious questions that demand transparency and independent scrutiny. The Brazilian people deserve confidence in their elections, the right to challenge results, and protection from political retaliation.  The United States must stand for free and fair elections, due process, and fundamental freedoms. The concerns surrounding Brazil warrant serious scrutiny, particularly given what we have witnessed in Venezuela."

Glenn Greenwald on X - "CRUCIAL FACTS ON THE FLAVIO BOLSONARO MATTER:
It's not just Flavio Bolsonaro who fled Brazil to escape the tyrannical persecution of Alexandre de Moraes and the pro-Lula wing of the Supreme Court. There are dozens of Brazilian exiles who have done the same: dissident journalists, activists, bloggers, and politicians who all fled to avoid certain prison for political opposition.   In most of these cases, Moraes has demanded the extradition of those who fled and whom he wants to imprison back in Brazil. But Moraes' extradition requests have been repeatedly denied by multiple countries and institutions on the grounds that these prosecutions are politically motivated or otherwise corrupted. Among those concluing this: Spain, Italy, INTERPOL, and even the US under Biden.  Just today, Italy refused Brazil's demand to extradite a person named @edutagli , who was once a top aide to Moraes, but then fled to Italy after Moraes accused him of having been my source in a huge leak from Moraes' office that I obtained for reporting I did with @Folha  in 2024. That massive leak enabled us to publish roughly 20 articles proving systemic abuses of power by Moraes against his political enemies: exactly the reason so many Brazilians, including Bolsonaro, know they can't get a fair trial in Brazil.   Italy today refused to extradite the person accused of being our source on the grounds that the proceedings would be a farce because Moraes — as he so often does — wants to act as the supposed victim, investigator, and judge, and thus his demand falls well outside of Italy's extradition standards. Again, multiple countries have concluded the same, showing what a farce Brazil's once-respected judicial system has become under the Lula/Moraes regime.   Moraes has overseen a system of political persecution masquerading as criminal justice that has been recognized as a sham by multiple countries that are not exactly Bolsonaro allies. Nobody in their right mind who is a political enemy of Moraes would remain in Brazil once if it is clear that he intends to imprison you, since he has proven that guilt is a foregone conclusion and he operates with no legal or constitutional limits of any kind.  That is why asylum under international law exists: to protect those who cannot obtain justice in their own country because the justice system has been corrupted and commandeered for political persecution. Many people, such as Julian Assange, have needed that protection (which Lula cheered). Now people need it from Moraes in Brazil. That is sadly one of the main legacies of both Lula and Moraes over the last six years."

Glenn Greenwald on X - "The Brazilian Supreme Court Judge revered by the Brazilian left (and now the American left for seizing Bolsonaro's passport), Alexandre de Moraes, comes from the extremist "law-and-order" faction of the Brazilian Right as well as its extreme pro-austerity neoliberal pro-banker wing.  Less than a decade ago, when Moraes was nominated to the Supreme Court, the Brazilian left branded him a white supremacist, a fascist and a leader of the right-wing coup government. One of Brazil's leading left-wing politicians (@GuilhermeBoulos ) explicitly accused Moraes of having committed the worst crime against humanity that exists: "RACIST GENOCIDE," by deliberately murdering poor black people en masse while he was the Justice Secretary for São Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin (who himself spent years being called all the same names by the Brazilian left until Lula picked Alckmin as VP in 2022).   Then -- starting in 2019 -- Moraes began censoring, imprisoning and persecuting Lula's enemies and imprisoning his own critics, and was overnight transformed by the large Brazilian media and the left into the Savior of Brazilian Justice and Democracy. Only on the left can one transform from from *fascist and genocidal racist* to heroic guardian of justice in less than a decade. Also, Moraes' own corruption scandals make everyone else's seem trivial, yet his passport works just fine and he freely travels the world in great wealth that he and his family received from the corrupt billionaire banker responsible for Brazil's worst-ever banking collapse. Enjoy!"

Donnie Cope on X - "😂 😡 🤬 🤣 Allies in Brazil 🇧🇷 are reporting the President Lula turned red, stammered, spat, and screamed at Federal Police Director Andrei Rodrigues to find and arrest Flavio Bolsonaro immediately, warning that the last thing Brazil needed was its own Maria Corina rallying the opposition from exile.   The reported outburst comes as multiple countries currently refuse Brazilian Supreme Court extradition requests over political persecution claims, and as the same court has targeted Bolsonaro family members with probes and travel bans. The pattern is clear: lose the argument at the ballot box, then use the police and the courts. 👈"

Joaquin Castro on X - "Losing an election is not grounds for asylum. Yet the Trump Administration is giving Flávio Bolsonaro safe haven in the United States. In Brazil, he is under investigation for alleged corruption, money laundering and currency evasion, and was ordered to surrender his passports.  The Trump Administration owes Congress answers on its role helping Bolsonaro flee Brazil in contravention of Brazilian law."
Daniel Di Martino on X - "It is when they take your passport away and threaten to jail you for your political opinion. That is the lawful definition of asylum, actually."
David Adler on X - "Who threatened to jail Bolsonaro for his political opinions? These people are either illiterate idiots or sociopathic liars. Sometimes both."
Students For Liberty on X - "No one in the Soviet Union was arrested for "political opinions.”  They were arrested for “treason,” “sabotage,” or any other crime the system came up with against its political opponents. Some of the charges were even true; others were completely baseless, but that did not matter—the verdict was always the same: guilty.  And that is the whole point. When you do not have the rule of law, as Brazil seems to no longer have, the law no longer exists to punish criminals. It becomes merely a tool used against those who dare defy the system."

Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇫🇷🇺🇦🇹🇼 on X - "Judge Alexandre de Moraes signed an order demanding Bolsonaro hand over his passport WITHIN SEVEN MINUTES of the close of voting. Before votes had even been counted.   What did he know about the vote results that enabled him to make this order within seven minutes of polls closing - seemingly confident that Bolsonaro had already lost?"

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on X - "Yesterday, Brazil showed the world that the will of the people is stronger than the authoritarians who try to suppress it. Congratulations President @LulaOficial and congratulations Brazil."
Martin De Luca on X - "In this alternative reality, the opposition leader who is out of power fleeing into exile, and the father who is in prison are the authoritarians.  And the guy who controls all security forces of the state, the electoral system, and largely the media through state subsidies, and who ordered a travel ban on his opponent within seven minutes of being declared the winner of the presidential election after having his former lawyer acting as judge extend the closure of the polls and suspend the counting for two hours is the democratic man representing the will of the people.    Please follow @AOC  for more daily comedy and satire."

PCO - Partido da Causa Operária on X (Translated) - "Flávio Bolsonaro is being persecuted because he received nearly 60 million votes, said Rui Costa Pimenta. See what he said in the Analysis of the 3rd:  "The persecution has nothing to do with the defense of democracy. It is political persecution. Why is Flávio Bolsonaro being persecuted? Because he received nearly 60 million votes. Because he has a majority, he has a very significant bloc in the Senate and Congress. He can secure the impeachment of certain STF ministers. So, the persecution is because of that; it's a power play.""
Clearly, the Communists in Brazil are really fascists

PCO - Partido da Causa Operária on X (Translated) - "Seven minutes. That was the time between the TSE confirming Flávio Bolsonaro's defeat and the Federal Police requesting his passport from Alexandre de Moraes. Moraes authorized it that same night.  Anyone who thinks this is that so-called "fight against fascism" is being deceived. It is, pure and simply, political persecution against someone who received nearly 60 million votes.  And who is leading the hunt? A minister whose wife has over R$200 million in contracts with companies owned by Daniel Vorcaro, the banker at the center of the Banco Master scandal. With what moral authority does this judge rule on someone for corruption?  It is the mockery of the Republic. An insult to the intelligence of the Brazilian people."

LeeKuanYewRespecter on X - "Understand how the narrative works.   Ahead of Brazil’s election, they were gearing up to blame Meta if Lula lost. Now that he’s been declared the winner, we’re hearing about the brilliant use of WhatsApp (Meta) that helped deliver his victory.  When Obama won in 2012, they celebrated his shrewd use of Facebook, voter data and microtargeting. When Brexit happened and Trump won in 2016, we got the Cambridge Analytica moral panic.  When the left wins, it’s brilliant digital campaigning. When the right wins, it’s social media manipulation undermining democracy."

Adalex Góis on X  (Translated) - "LULA ISN'T ABLE TO SLEEP PEACEFULLY (Special Wednesday article, October 28, 2026)
 Something strange is happening after the Brazilian elections, and I'm not just talking about the result.  Lula, the PT, and the entire political system that worked alongside them supposedly won the most important contest in recent years.  So explain this to me: WHERE IS THE CELEBRATION?  Look at the atmosphere that formed after the result was announced. There isn't that natural euphoria of someone who just defeated their biggest political adversary and secured four more years in power.  Lula's expression, the reactions of his allies, and even the behavior of some of his voters convey far more concern than relief.  Obviously, no one can figure out what a person is thinking just by looking at their face, but a journalist also can't ignore a contradiction when it starts lining up with other equally strange facts.  And that's exactly what happened.   While Lula and his allies were managing the fallout from the election, Flávio Bolsonaro and his family left Brazil in an operation that put the United States at the center of the story.   The importance of this episode isn't just in Flávio's physical departure from the country, but in what it reveals: the dispute stopped happening exclusively within Brazilian institutions and started directly involving a foreign government with infinitely superior economic, diplomatic, and strategic power to any domestic player.  This is where Donald Trump (@donaldtrumpjr ) comes in.   For years, Lula, Alexandre de Moraes, and other STF ministers faced Bolsonarism on terrain they knew and controlled: the Judiciary, Federal Police, TSE, inquiries, and decisions made within Brazilian jurisdiction. But what happens when one of the main players in this conflict starts counting on political support from the President of the United States?  Brazilian authorities can control what happens inside Brazil. They don't control Trump, the State Department, the U.S. Treasury, or the decisions Washington can make.   And Trump has already begun ramping up the tension by publicly questioning the Brazilian election, raising suspicions about the result without presenting any public evidence so far to back up those accusations.   But there's an even more troubling element.  According to a report cited on CNN, Trump has in his hands a dossier with information on the entire Brazilian electoral process, including suspicions related to STF ministers.  If this information is correct, there's a gigantic difference between an American president simply stating he distrusts an election and the U.S. government possessing gathered material on what happened, who made certain decisions, and whether there was any irregularity capable of compromising the process.  Now go back to the beginning. Lula wins, but doesn't seem to celebrate. Flávio quickly leaves Brazil with American involvement. Trump starts publicly questioning the election. And information emerges that Washington has a dossier on the electoral process and on players directly involved in it.
WHAT DOES LULA KNOW THAT MOST OF HIS VOTERS STILL DON'T KNOW?
 Because maybe the problem for Lula and his allies isn't simply in the ballot box results. Maybe it's in what can happen when Donald Trump decides to reveal what he has—and turn a Brazilian political dispute into an international crisis that Brasília can no longer control.  If that's the case, the result announced by the TSE may have only wrapped up one part of the election.  
THE OTHER MAY BE STARTING NOW—AND A LONG WAY FROM BRASÍLIA."

Matteo Mattioli on X (Translated) - "The wife of Alexandre de Moraes, a judge 🇧🇷 who sentenced father Bolsonaro to 27 years in prison and seized the passport of his son Flavio, has a €20M consulting contract with Daniel Vorcaro, CEO of Banco Master, which was shut down by the Central Bank for serious irregularities."

Richard Hanania on X - "Colombia's president says Lula legitimately won the election. Everyone in the region seems to understand that Lula isn't that radical and there's something very sinister about the Bolsonaros. They aren't a normal right-wing Latin American movement."
Murphy🌐 on X - ""Lula isnt that radical" Lula banned people from viewing the dollar value one time because it was hurting his popularity."

Christian Heiens 🏛 on X - "If there’s anything Brazil has taught us over the last four years, it’s that Leftists will rig elections, call themselves defenders of democracy while they’re doing it, hijack the courts after they’ve won, use them to convert the country into a soft dictatorship, and then arrest their political enemies, ban free speech, and attack social media platforms they can’t control in order to guarantee that they never lose power ever again.  And with that power they will construct an inverted hierarchy that places troons, third worldists, criminals, drug addicts, and mentally ill lunatics at the top of the social pyramid, all while acting like they’re fighting for equality and just being a heckin’ decent human being."

Karina Michelin on X - Federal Deputy Jilmar Tatto, from the PT of São Paulo, made a gravely serious statement from the rostrum of the Chamber of Deputies this Tuesday, October 27. Not only did he defend the return of Jair Bolsonaro to prison, but he announced new arrests of political opponents, claiming to have information from the Federal Police.  “I have information from the Federal Police that they’re going to arrest a lot of Bolsonaristas. The Federal Police has all the information. A lot more people are going to be arrested in this country.”  Pay attention to the gravity of these words!  A parliamentarian from the party that controls the federal government claims to have advance knowledge of future arrests of political adversaries. Since when do government deputies receive privileged information about police operations? Who transmitted this information? And why does a PT parliamentarian publicly announce who will be arrested?  The statement comes amid the escalation of judicial measures against Flávio Bolsonaro, who denounced political persecution and left Brazil for the United States.  The main figure of the opposition leaves the country, while a deputy from Lula’s party—and Lula’s party itself—announces that other Bolsonaristas will be arrested. This is the political scenario Brazil faces after the 2026 presidential elections.  The Federal Police is a state institution, not a partisan police force. There is no constitutional authorization to turn investigations into instruments of political intimidation, much less to announce arrests in advance as if they were decisions made in party meetings.  Lula’s Brazil has turned into a dictatorship, and this didn’t happen overnight. For years we have denounced abuses of power, political persecution, censorship, and the authoritarian advance over institutions. For years we have warned of this catastrophe; unfortunately, we have arrived at the consolidation of a regime that no longer hides its willingness to silence, intimidate, and politically eliminate its adversaries.  What we once denounced as a threat now presents itself before our eyes as a reality."

Schneiden on X (Translated) - "🚨URGENT - Alexandre de Moraes attempts to request the cancellation of Flávio Bolsonaro's Italian passport.  The Supreme Court of Italy responds that it will no longer examine orders from an incompetent judge, who positions himself as judge, accuser, and victim in the same process."

El Trumpista on X (Translated) - "There are 106 ballot boxes where Bolsonaro received 0 votes, in those Lula tallied 14,860 votes.  There are 125 ballot boxes where Bolsonaro received 1 vote, in those Lula tallied 15,408 votes.  There are 163 ballot boxes where Bolsonaro received 2 votes, in those Lula tallied 18,832 votes.  Strange, to say the least. Source: TSE"

La Derecha Diario on X (Translated) - "🚨🇧🇷 | LULA'S REGIME NOW GOES AFTER NIKOLAS FERREIRA: With Flávio Bolsonaro apparently in exile, the Brazilian officialdom has requested the withdrawal of the passport from the most voted deputy in Brazil's history and a reference point for conservative youth, to prevent him from leaving the country over an investigation into alleged "slander" against Lula."

方伟｜Allen Zeng on X (Translated) - "Incredible, yet entirely predictable Brazilian election, and the latest dramatic curtain call:
1. On Sunday, Brazil held the presidential runoff election. Bolsonaro, who led incumbent President Lula by 2 percentage points in the first round, absorbed votes from two other conservative candidates in the primaries and should have won by a much larger margin, but ended up losing by a 3.5% gap. Out of 14 million runoff ballots, an astonishing 10 million "went to" Lula, while only 3.7 million went to Bolsonaro, "accomplishing" an election that defies mathematical possibility.
2. Before polls closed at 5 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, Lula demanded that the Brazilian Electoral Court extend voting by two hours, citing that over 20% of public buses in three cities weren't running, preventing poor people from voting. Bolsonaro also applied to extend voting time, citing heavy rain obstructing votes.
3. But Supreme Court Justice Zenin, Lula's former personal lawyer, overrode the Electoral Court after 5 p.m. and approved Lula's request. By then, most polling stations had shut down their voting machines due to time expiration—an irreversible action, as the machines couldn't be reopened. Yet the voting machines in Lula's districts, as if prescient, hadn't been shut down and continued operating for two more hours. At the same time, monitors from Bolsonaro's Liberal Party were ejected from the election operations headquarters in Brasília.
4. After that, Lula's votes kept pouring in steadily, ultimately giving him a lead of 4.3 million votes over Bolsonaro.
5. Bolsonaro announced he would not accept the election results and demanded the election be annulled.
6. On Monday, after visiting his father—the elderly Bolsonaro under house arrest—Bolsonaro received an order from Brazil's Supreme Court on his way home, demanding he surrender his passport within 24 hours.
7. Meanwhile, world leaders rushed to congratulate Lula on his "victory" as president, but U.S. President Trump did not. Trump said: "This looks like a rigged election."
8. On Monday afternoon, under a "the situation is stronger than the man" reality, Bolsonaro was forced to announce acceptance of the election results.
9. On television, Lula demanded an apology from Argentine President Milei, who had voiced support for Bolsonaro. Milei told reporters: "Why should I apologize for telling the truth?"
10. Reports say Bolsonaro fled Brazil with his entire family, passing through Argentina and boarding a private jet to Florida, USA. It's said this was arranged by U.S. Secretary of State Rubio. Bolsonaro's flight after the election serves as an action telling all the world leaders who congratulated Lula: Lula not only illegally seized the presidency but also persecuted his political opponent! In his wake, he leaves behind a Brazilian version of Venezuela."

teo_naudomoi on X (Translated) - "Now they're raiding the headquarters of Bolsonaro's party in Brasília. Frankly, I just don't know how someone can defend the idea that what's happening in Brazil is democracy without admitting their mental deficiency."

Lucas 💢◤✠◢ on X (Translated) - "In Araruama, Flavio won the first round with more than double the votes of Lula.
Araruama in the second round:
Flávio won 11 votes
Lula won 5,581 votes.
 This means that, in a city where Flavio Bolsonaro won with MORE THAN DOUBLE the votes of Lula in the first round, the current president had 507x more votes than Flavio in the second.  The same pattern repeats in the neighboring cities, which are also very bolsonaristas.  The mathematical aberration of this is astounding."

Glenn Greenwald on X - "Brazilian authorities and media are trying to find out where Flavio Bolsonaro is.   Brazil's notorious authoritarian Judge Alexandre de Moraes -- before the votes were counted -- already had an order prepared to seize Bolsonaro's passports and bar him from leaving the country even though **he's been charged with no crime** (there are various pending financial investigations). Moraes signed the order barring Bolsonaro from leaving Brazil SEVEN MINUTES after Lula was declared the winner on Sunday night.  A media outlet in Argentina this morning reported that Bolsonaro entered Argentina to fly to the US. His friends and allies deny this, but Flavio could easily just appear in Brazil or even by video and has not done so. Argentina is being sketchy, evasive and somewhat uncooperative with Brazil's federal police (Lula and Milei are obviously not allies).  Whatever else is true, it is not exactly a sign of a healthy, normal or functioning democracy when the candidate who narrowly loses a presidential race -- and concedes defeat -- is suddenly barred from leaving the country by a Supreme Court Judge now globally notorious for censoring, imprisoning and otherwise persecuting his critics and opponents of Lula's government. It is also worth noting that Bolsonaro's party dominates the Senate, having run on a vow to impeach Moraes, and this is seen by many as a kind of leverage/hostage ploy by Moraes to cling to power."
Glenn Greenwald on X - "For those who decided to invent some bizarre new authoritarian law-and-order rule today to justify Moraes' ban on Bolsonaro leaving the country -- that if you're under investigation (without even being charged), it's normal to have your passport seized -- please note:  Lula's son is engulfed in several major financial scandals and investigations relating to lobbyist corruption. His passport has never been seized or cancelled. In fact, he left Brazil to go live in extreme luxury in Spain (in the same neighborhood where several of the world's highest-paid soccer players live), where nobody can explain the source of what appears to be his great wealth.   Countless rich and powerful people in Brazil, including Lula's allies, are under investigation yet freely leave the country when they want: jetting off to Dubai, France, wherever. Truly bizarre how some on the left start fabricating extremist police powers when it suits them."

Schneiden on X - "🚨 BREAKING NEWS - The United States, Argentina, Italy, Spain, Poland, England, and Japan are no longer accepting requests originating from the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF).  An excessive number of extradition requests for Brazilian nationals - initiated by Alexandre de Moraes on questionable grounds - has led these countries to conclude that Brazil is a dictatorship engaged in political persecution.  Photo: American Representative Maria Elvira Salazar shows the face of Brazilian tyrannical bastard Alexandre de Moraes to the entire world."