'So STUPID': Joe SLAMS Trump reaction to Obama 'FAKE GOLD' White House joke

Scarborough: Blowback to Obama’s Cheesecake Factory quip is ‘stupid’

 https://thehill.com/homenews/media/6173373-scarborough-defends-obama-cheesecake-factory/

MS NOW’s Joe Scarborough on Monday slammed negative reactions to former President Obama’s recent joke about the Cheesecake Factory and the White House.

On Saturday, Obama made fun of President Trump’s multiple renovation projects in Washington while at a campaign stop in Cleveland.

“What’s with the gold? … He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” the former president quipped.

Obama added that he thought Trump was more focused on renovating the White House than on issues voters cared about.

Israel Election 2026: What do Arye Deri's Shas and Yakov Asher's United Torah Judaism stand for?

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-election-2026/article-907982

The issue of separating religion and state is another defining area of haredi politics, as both Shas and UTJ seek to preserve an Orthodox Jewish character for the country and maintain the authority of religious institutions, particularly the Chief Rabbinate.

They have firmly opposed expanding alternatives to religious law, including civil marriage, and support maintaining the existing system in which marriages are conducted through the Rabbinate.

The haredi draft is part of this broader religious debate. Both parties claim that full-time Torah study is a central religious value that should receive legal protection, while their opponents argue that this creates unequal civic obligations between haredi men and Israelis who serve in the IDF.

Israel is holding its most important election in years. Here’s what’s at stake

 https://edition.cnn.com/2026/10/25/middleeast/israel-election-2026-whats-at-stake-intl

For many voters, this is the first chance to pass judgment on the leadership that presided over October 7 failures, to decide who should lead the country in conflict and who should carry the burden of increased military service.

Netanyahu’s outgoing government – the first in decades to conclude a full four-year term – relied on far-right and ultra-Orthodox partners, who pushed Israel in a more nationalist and religious direction than ever before. He became the first sitting Israeli prime minister to stand trial on corruption charges as his government pursued a judicial overhaul aimed at weakening the supreme court and other checks on power. The overhaul effort sparked massive protests in 2023.

At stake in Tuesday’s election is whether Israel keeps moving in the nationalistic, conservative and religious direction – or changes course. The answer might not be clear for weeks, because of the way Israeli coalitions are built. Polls suggest neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor the opposition is likely to win a majority alone, meaning the vote may launch Israel’s next political crisis rather than settle it.

Lessons from the past to guide your hand on election day

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/435162

Israel’s enemies are waiting for there to be just one government which is “temporarily focussed on the Hareidi issue," on fighting internally instead of fighting them. Remember the days of Oslo and the "peace camp"? Opinion.

The problem in 2026 is, in the same way, not Eisenkot. It’s not, but yet it is. Because Eisenkot, like Rabin, is a “top brass" figurehead, behind whom lurks an ideology which, without even knowing you, is way way far from, way way opposed to, your own beliefs - you reading this now. Do not make the mistake, now, that so many voters fatefully made in 1992.

Eisenkot (and Ofer Vinter, and Bennett) have themselves been duped. Don’t follow them down a path that’s dangerous for you, for them, for us all. Do the right thing on Election Day. Because the wrong slip of paper can cause so many lives to slip away, and some of those lives may, G-d forbid, belong to those you love.

Israel’s enemies are waiting for there to be just one government which is “temporarily focussed on the Hareidi issue" (for which purpose “leaders" will, our enemies hope, be empowered, by your hand, on Tuesday. “Leaders" who, politically, are NOT able to block our enemies’ nefarious aims, and that is the hidden real point). Don’t give those brutal enemies the months or years of grace they seek, with your own misguided hand.

Security threats have marred Netanyahu’s term. They might also keep him in power

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/security-threats-have-marred-netanyahus-term-they-might-also-keep-him-in-power/

The PM has a well-worn playbook: brand his opponents as left-wing, then warn that Israel is in danger, and only he can keep it safe. They haven’t figured out how to respond

The incumbent prime minister of Israel is telling voters that they should prepare for a reality in which their country is an economic pariah state at war with Iran for the third time in 18 months, and is at risk of being nuked. He is saying, in his own words, that three years after the worst attack in Israel’s history, following an exhausting multi-front war that has ruptured Israeli society and turned most of the world against it, the country is still in “real existential danger.”

To be clear, a Netanyahu victory is not a foregone conclusion. But nor is a loss. No matter who — if anyone — wins this election, the best they can hope for is a narrow coalition in a polarized Knesset. The vote will almost definitely not signal a historic political realignment, much less a resounding death knell for a prime minister who was in office on October 7, 2023.

Israelis to head to polls as voting begins in pivotal Knesset election

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-election-2026/article-912973

Polls opened across Israel on Tuesday morning as eligible voters head to the polls to elect the country's next Knesset in a pivotal race pitting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his sitting coalition against the opposition bloc seeking to replace him.

Within the opposition bloc, Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party has taken the lead ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud in the majority of recent polling, though neither bloc still appears able to secure a 61-seat Knesset majority.

Polling stations opened at 7:00 a.m., and exit polls are expected at 10:00 p.m., offering preliminary projections of the election results. The official results will be finalized in the coming days, following the completion of the vote count.

Biowarfare from "Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases" by Offit M.D., Paul A. -

 "But for demonstrating how infections can change the outcome of wars, no war matched the Spanish conquest of Mexico in the sixteenth century. With an army of only four hundred men, Hernando Cortez conquered an Aztec civilization of four million. Cortez didn’t defeat the Aztecs because his men were braver (the Aztecs were fierce, noble fighters) or because he was more adept at recruiting other Indian tribes to join him (allies joined Cortez only after they were sure he would win) or because he had more guns and horses (the guns were crude and the horses were of limited value). So what was it? What caused an Aztec civilization of millions to lay down its arms and wholly, unequivocally surrender to a few hundred Spanish invaders? The answer was an infection that had been circulating in Europe for centuries but had never crossed the Atlantic Ocean: smallpox. Within one year of the Spanish invasion, the smallpox plague had killed millions. The Aztecs interpreted the plague as punishment, convinced that their invaders enjoyed divine favor. “The religions, priesthoods, and way of life built around the old Indian gods could not survive such a demonstration of the superior power of the God the Spaniards worshipped,” wrote William McNeill, author of Plagues and Peoples. “Little wonder, then, that the Indians accepted Christianity and submitted to Spanish control so meekly. God had shown Himself on their side, and each new outbreak of infectious disease imported from Europe, and soon from Africa as well, renewed the lesson.”"

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Trump admin illegally fired Maurene Comey, judge rules

 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/26/maurene-comey-firing-ruling

A judge ruled Monday that the Trump administration broke the law when it fired Maurene Comey from her job as a federal prosecutor last year — sharply curbing the administration’s attempt to advance a “sweeping theory” of executive power.

Comey’s abrupt termination from her longtime job as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan wasn’t authorized by any statute and violated the Civil Service Reform Act, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman, an Obama appointee, wrote.

And he said the Justice Department’s argument that the Constitution's Article II, which outlines the powers of the president, bars Congress from regulating the removal of federal prosecutors “flies in the face of nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent.”

Judge rules James Comey’s daughter unlawfully fired as federal prosecutor

 https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/6172624-maurene-comey-justice-department-unlawful-firing/

A federal judge ruled Monday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) unlawfully fired and must provide back pay to Maurene Comey, former FBI Director James Comey’s daughter who was terminated as a prosecutor last year.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman rejected the Trump administration’s arguments that it had constitutional authority to fire her. 

“Defendants’ argument is contrary to an unbroken line of Supreme Court decisions dating back almost two centuries, and the Supreme Court itself has not formally overruled any of those decisions. That is sufficient, in itself, to reject the argument,” Furman wrote in his 55-page opinion.

Democrats Drop Major Report on Trump’s Alleged Ties to Epstein Crimes

 https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-drop-major-report-on-trumps-alleged-ties-to-epstein-crimes-12620119

House Judiciary Committee Democrats released a report Monday calling for an independent special counsel to investigate President Donald Trump’s relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, arguing that accounts from women and records released in the Epstein case warrant further investigation into whether Trump committed wrongdoing.

The Democratic staff report, titled We Have Certain Things in Common, Jeffrey: The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging in the Epstein Files and DOJ’s Desperate Efforts to Cover it Up, examines accounts involving 11 women. According to the report, five directly accuse Trump of serious sexual misconduct in Epstein’s company or presence. The allegations are disputed and have not resulted in criminal findings against Trump.

The report also accuses the Department of Justice (DOJ) of improperly withholding some Epstein-related records and impeding investigative efforts. Those claims represent the conclusions of Democratic committee staff, rather than findings by the full House Judiciary Committee or a court.

Ohio Venues Cancel Vivek Ramaswamy Events as Backlash Grows

 https://www.newsweek.com/ohio-venues-cancel-vivek-ramaswamy-events-backlash-grows-midterms-amy-acton-12618375

Ohio venues are pulling out of hosting Republican campaign events featuring gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, as backlash grows over his advert featuring his Democratic opponent Amy Acton's estranged mother.

Ramaswamy has faced bipartisan criticism after his campaign produced an advert featuring his Democratic opponent's estranged mother, who called Acton "a liar."

Acton has said that she was sexually abused by her stepfather as a child, and has not seen her mother since she testified against him in court aged 12. She said that her stepfather was charged with rape before he fled the state with her mother.

Patent Medicines and the story of Coke

quote from "A History of the World in 6 Glasses

 "The rise of America, and the globalization of war, politics, trade, and communications during the twentieth century, are mirrored by the rise of Coca-Cola, consistently one of the world’s most valuable and widely recognized brands, which is universally regarded as the embodiment of America and its values. For those who approve of the United States, that means economic and political freedom of choice, consumerism and democracy, the American dream; for those who disapprove, it stands for ruthless global capitalism, the hegemony of global corporations and brands, and the dilution of local cultures and values into homogenized and Americanized mediocrity. Just as the story of Britain’s empire can be seen in a cup of tea, so the story of America’s rise to global preeminence is paralleled in the story of Coca-Cola, that brown, sweet, and fizzy beverage."

"In May 1886 John Pemberton, a pharmacist who lived in Atlanta, Georgia, invented a drink. According to the Coca-Cola Company’s official version of the story, he was a tinkerer who stumbled on the right combination of ingredients by accident, while trying to devise a cure for headaches. One afternoon he mixed various ingredients in a three-legged pot to create a caramel-colored liquid, which he then took to a nearby pharmacy, combining the liquid with soda water to create the sweet, fizzy, and invigorating drink—Coca-Cola—that would eventually reach nearly every corner of the world. The real story is rather more complicated, however. Pemberton was, in fact, an experienced maker of patent medicines, the quack remedies that were hugely popular in America in the late nineteenth century. These pills, balsams, syrups, creams, and oils were generally triumphs of advertising over pharmacology. Some were harmless, but many contained large amounts of alcohol, caffeine, opium, or morphine. They were sold through newspaper advertisements, and their production became a huge industry after the Civil War, as veterans took to dosing themselves. The popularity of patent medicines reflected a general distrust of conventional medicines, which were often expensive and ineffective. Patent medicines offered an alluring alternative, marketed as they often were on the basis of exotic ingredients or the medical knowledge of Native Americans, and under names with religious, patriotic, or mythological overtones: Munson’s Paw-Paw Pills to Coax Your Liver into Action, Dr. Morse’s Indian Root Pills, and so on. There was nothing to stop manufacturers of such medicines from making outrageous claims about their effectiveness. The Elixir of Life sold by a Dr. Kidd, for example, claimed to cure “every known ailment.… The lame have thrown away crutches and walked after two or three trials of the remedy.… Rheumatism, neuralgia, stomach, heart, liver, kidney, blood and skin diseases disappear as by magic.” The newspapers that printed such advertisements did not ask any questions. They welcomed the advertising revenues, which enabled the newspaper industry to expand enormously; by the end of the nineteenth century patent medicines accounted for more newspaper advertising than any other product. The makers of St. Jacob’s Oil, which was said to remedy “sore muscles,” spent five hundred thousand dollars on advertising in 1881, and some advertisers were spending more than one million dollars a year by 1895. The patent-medicine business was among the first to recognize the importance of trademarks and advertising, of slogans, logos, and hoardings. Since the remedies themselves usually cost very little to make, it made sense to spend money on marketing. With so many competing products on the market, however, only 2 percent of them made a profit, according to one estimate. But those that did succeed made fortunes for their inventors. One of the most famous was Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound. It was said to be “a positive cure for all those painful Complaints and Weaknesses so common to our best female population.… It removes faintness, flatulency, destroys all craving for stimulants, and relieves weakness of the stomach.” Customers were encouraged to write to Pinkham for medical advice, even after her death in 1883, which was kept quiet. They received form letters in return, invariably recommending the use of more of her compound. When analyzed in the early twentieth century, it was found to contain 15 to 20 percent alcohol. Ironically, women temperance campaigners were among its most fervent users. Pemberton’s own attempts to make patent medicines had met with mixed success. At times his remedies produced a solid income, but during the 1870s he had a run of bad luck. He was declared bankrupt in 1872, and his attempts to get back on his feet were hampered by two fires that destroyed his stock. But he continued to develop new patent medicines in the hope that one of them would make him rich. Finally, in 1884, he started to get somewhere, thanks to the popularity of a new patent-medicine ingredient: coca. The leaves of the coca plant had long been known among South American peoples for their stimulating effect; coca was known as “the divine plant of the Incas.” Chewing a small ball of the leaves releases tiny quantities of an alkaloid drug, cocaine. In small doses this sharpens the mind, much like caffeine, and suppresses the appetite, making possible long treks across the Andes with very little food or sleep. Cocaine was isolated from coca leaves in 1855, and it then became the subject of much interest among Western scientists and doctors, who thought it might help to cure opium addicts by providing an alternative. (They were unaware that cocaine was just as addictive.) Pemberton followed the discussion of coca in the medical journals closely, and by the 1880s he and other patent-medicine makers were incorporating it into their tablets, elixirs, and ointments. Pemberton’s contribution to this burgeoning field was a drink called French Wine Coca. As its name suggests, this was a coca-infused wine. In fact, it was just one of many attempts to imitate a particularly successful patent medicine called Vin Mariani, which consisted of French wine in which coca leaves had been steeped for six months. Vin Mariani was popular in Europe and the United States, thanks to its high cocaine content and the marketing prowess of its creator, a Corsican named Angelo Mariani. The letters of endorsement for his drink from celebrities and heads of state, including three popes, two American presidents, Queen Victoria, and the inventor Thomas Edison, were published as a book in thirteen volumes. Pemberton copied the coca-infused wine formula and added kola extract too. The nuts of the kola plant from West Africa were another supposed wonder-cure that had become known in the West at around the same time as coca, and also had an invigorating effect when chewed, since they contain about 2 percent caffeine. As with coca leaves in South America, kola nuts were valued as a stimulant by indigenous peoples in West Africa, from Senegal in the north to Angola in the south. They were used in religious ceremonies by the Yoruba people in Nigeria; the people of Sierra Leone wrongly believed that kola nuts cured malaria. In nineteenth-century America, coca and kola often ended up being lumped together in patent medicines due to the similarity of their effects. Just as he copied and slightly modified Mariani’s formula for the drink, Pemberton also borrowed from Mariani’s advertisements, claiming several celebrity endorsements as testimonials for his own drink. Sales of his French Wine Coca began to grow. But just when it seemed that Pemberton was on the right track, Atlanta and Fulton County voted to prohibit the sale of alcohol from July 1, 1886, for a two-year trial period. With the temperance movement gaining ground, Pemberton needed to produce a successful nonalcoholic remedy, and fast. He went back to his elaborate home laboratory and started work on a “temperance drink” containing coca and kola, with the bitterness of the two principal ingredients masked using sugar. This would be no ordinary patent medicine, though; he intended it to be dispensed as a medicinal soda-water flavoring. As he refined his formula, Pemberton sent batches of it to the neighborhood pharmacy, where it was offered to customers alongside the other flavorings. On occasion he would ask his nephew to loiter in the pharmacy to hear what other people had to say about the new drink’s taste."

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Rabbi Zilberstein Rules Woman Must Vote for UTJ Even Against Husband’s Wishes

 https://vinnews.com/2026/10/26/rabbi-zilberstein-rules-woman-must-vote-for-utj-even-against-husbands-wishes/

Rabbi Yitzchak Zilberstein, one of Israel’s leading charedi rabbinical authorities, has ruled that a woman whose husband forbids her from voting for United Torah Judaism (UTJ) should nevertheless cast her ballot without informing him, describing the act as a sanctification of G-d’s name.

According to the question, the couple had traditionally voted for United Torah Judaism, following the instructions of prominent Lithuanian charedi leaders, including the late Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman and Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, as well as the current leader of the Lithuanian charedi community, Rabbi Dov Lando.

However, the woman’s husband had become more modern in recent years and increasingly critical of leading rabbis. He eventually declared that neither he nor his wife would vote in the upcoming election.

The woman, meanwhile, remained committed to following Rabbi Lando’s instructions. She described seeing the elderly rabbi traveling from city to city, pleading with members of the charedi community to participate in the election and emphasizing the importance of the political struggle