By Max Fisher, NYT

Supporters of the Brazilian far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro celebrating his victory in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.Fernando Maia/EPA, via Shutterstock

For anyone curious about the future of democracy, two developments out of Brazil and Germany pose something of a mystery.

The election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil looks too similar to the wave of right-wing, anti-establishment populism sweeping Europe and the United States to be dismissed as coincidence. Mr. Bolsonaro, known for praising his country’s former military dictatorship and insulting minorities and women, has championed anger at Brazil’s establishment by promising strong-fisted rule.
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By Deroy Murdock, NATIONAL REVIEW
November 2, 2018

Participants gather for the “2018 Young Black Leadership Summit,” in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., October 26, 2018. (Carlos Barria/Reuters )

The party that freed the slaves continues to liberate black Americans today.‘What the hell do you have to lose?” candidate Donald J. Trump queried black Americans in 2016, as he asked for their votes with characteristically blunt eloquence. Eight percent of black voters bought his pitch. While this seems like a rout, Trump outperformed Mitt Romney by one-third; 6 percent of blacks backed 2012’s GOP nominee. Trump’s total was astonishing, given that the Left/media slandered him as the guy who brings the lighter fluid to a cross burning. Read more…

By Mathew Continetti, FREE BEACON

Not even Jared Bernstein, former economic adviser to Joe Biden, could put a negative spin on Friday’s jobs report. The U.S. economy created some 250,000 jobs in October, beating expectations. The labor participation rate increased even as unemployment held steady at 3.7 percent. That’s a 50-year low. The best part: Wages rose 3 percent in the highest rate of growth since the Great Recession a decade ago. “Pretty much everything you could want in a monthly jobs report,” Bernstein tweeted.

October 2018 is the 97th consecutive month of jobs growth. The trend began with the end of the Great Recession, allowing Barack Obama as well as Donald Trump to take credit for it. The Trump economy is more than the jobs figure, however. Amidst volatility in the financial markets, at the time of writing the Dow is up close to 30 percent since Inauguration Day 2017. The economy grew by 4 percent in the second quarter of this year and 3.5 percent in the third quarter, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. (The third-quarter number will be revised on November 28.) That puts us on track for the best annual growth since 2005.
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T. Belman.  As expected, the NYT is sympathetic to Soros

By Kenneth P. Vogel, Scott Shane and Patrick Kingsley, NYT

WASHINGTON — Hours after he was informed last week that an explosive device had been delivered to his suburban New York home, George Soros, the billionaire investor and Democratic donor, got on a call with colleagues to discuss yet another threat: the authoritarian Hungarian government’s crackdown on a university he had founded.

The attempted attack in New York — subsequently determined to have been part of a wave of pipe bombs targeting prominent critics of President Trump — did not come up. But it was no coincidence that Mr. Soros would be facing intense opposition and threats at the same moment in two countries thousands of miles apart.

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Yet, by the lights of Foer, Ioffe, Milbank and their fellow American Jewish Trump-haters, Obama was a friend of American Jews, and Trump and his Jewish supporters are their enemies.

BY Caroline B. Glick, JPOST

Just hours after the largest massacre of Jews in America in US history, the Atlantic Monthly posted a piece by Franklin Foer. In his “Prayer for Squirrel Hill, and for American Jewry,” Foer wrote, “Any strategy for enhancing the security of American Jewry should involve shunning [President Donald] Trump’s Jewish enablers. Their money should be refused, their presence in synagogues not welcome. They have placed our community in danger.”

That is, in the shadow of the blood drenched synagogue, Foer declared war on his fellow Jews.

Between a quarter and 30% of American Jews voted for Trump. A quarter of American Jews intend to vote Republican in next week’s election.
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Trump’s policy has been grounded in realism, in reasserting that the U.S. knows who its friends are – and who are not: A simple, old-fashioned, yet absolutely indispensable stance for a world power

By Elliott Abrams, HAARETZ

US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Estero, Florida, on October 31, 2018AFP

When Donald Trump arrived in office U.S. influence in the Middle East was in broad decline. In the previous eight years, Iran and Russia had established vast influence and an on-the-ground presence in Syria, Iran was seen to be the rising power throughout the region, and U.S. relations with both Israel and the major Sunni Arab states were strained.

In two years Trump has turned that around.

U.S. power has been used to decimate Islamic State in Syria and shrink its geographical presence. Relations with Jordan, Egypt, and the Gulf states are much closer. The U.S. has withdrawn from the deeply flawed Obama nuclear agreement (JCPOA) that Israelis of all major parties had opposed, and has reimposed full economic sanctions on Iran aimed at damaging its economy and reducing the cash available to it for aggression, subversion, and terrorism.
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Institute for Policy Innovation

In a nationally syndicated op-ed, IPI’s Dr. Merrill Matthews says addressing border security is one of President Trump’s biggest concerns, and the caravan is making his case for him.

Matthews writes:

President Donald Trump is sending federal troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and taking other steps to stop the Honduran migrant caravan headed for the United States.

It’s unfortunate that it’s come to this, but it’s the right thing to do.

Millions of foreigners dream of coming to the U.S. because of the three pillars of our society: freedom, economic opportunity and the rule of law.

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Amman has been frustrated by long-stalled plans to jointly pump water from Red Sea to shrinking salt-water lake

TOI

Israel is seeking to advance work on the long-stalled Red Sea-Dead Sea project as a means of improving its relations with Jordan, Haaretz reported Friday.

The report said Israeli officials believe the repeated delays in implementing the project are a central factor in ongoing tensions between Jerusalem and its neighbor, which suffers from severe water shortages that could be alleviated by the canal.
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TV report says Netanyahu dispatched Shin Bet to convince PA chairman to renew cooperation. Abbas refused.

By Elad Benari, INN

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu attempted to renew ties with Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas and dispatched Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Nadav Argaman for this purpose, Hadashot TV reported on Thursday.

According to the report, Abbas refused all of Netanyahu’s overtures.

Argaman presented Abbas with a series of significant economic projects in an attempt to calm the region. Among other things, the report said, he offered Abbas the establishment of a joint industrial zone and partnership in the gas project opposite Gaza that Israel would be willing to promote in order to boost the PA economy.
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Economic cooperation of China with the countries of the region is progressing very successfully.

By Seymur Mammadove, JPOST

China is turning into an increasingly active player in the Middle East, entering the competition for influence in the region with both the United States and Russia. While Beijing views the Middle East region from the perspective of economic interests, Moscow and Washington view it from the perspective of geopolitical interests.
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Shoshana Bryen • October 31, 2018 • The Washington Times

Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. (Photo: AP)

OBSERVE WHY NIKKY HALEY CALLED HIM “A HIDDEN GENIUS”

DISCUSSION ON M.E. STARTS AT 17:00

Boeing is competing for a Defense Ministry tender which could result in billions of dollars flying into Israel’s economy throughout the next decade.

By Eytan Halon, JPOST

Aerospace giant Boeing could invest billions of dollars in Israel’s economy in the next decade after signing a reciprocal spending agreement with the Ministry of Economy, the government announced Tuesday.

Boeing, which is currently competing for a Defense Ministry tender worth an estimated $10 billion over the next decade, has agreed to collaborate with Israeli industry to the value of at least 35% of all government deals exceeding $1 million.
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