“Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has been detained for the third time in two days during a protest demanding the resignation of the election chief over a controversial revision of voter lists. Gandhi and other opposition lawmakers were apprehended by police on Wednesday as they marched towards Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site in India’s capital, New Delhi. … Opposition parties, their student units and the “Cockroach” youth movement have been demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing the poll body he heads of benefiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.” (10/08/26)
“Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, finished first in Sunday’s presidential election with 47 percent of the vote. He beat incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—known universally as Lula—on 45 percent, while his right-wing Partido Liberal (PL) also dominated the votes for both houses of Congress. Brazilians will now head for a runoff election between the two men on October 25. Despite being a country where citizens say they are angry at the status quo and want change, Brazil just voted in favor of… rerunning essentially the same political fight it saw in both 2018 and 2022. The country’s politics, in other words, is stagnant.” (10/07/26)
Source: Liberal Currents
by Holly Berkley Fletcher
“As the midterms approach, there has been much focus on how to break the Trump coalition. But one bloc is either written off as hopeless or folded into other categories, when it has long deserved its own strategy and approach. Without the support of white evangelicals, Donald Trump would have never become president and certainly would not have dominated our politics for a decade. And MAGA will never be defeated until liberals approach white evangelicals with a strategy focused on their distinctive characteristics.” (10/08/26)
“U.S. authorities charged former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro with conspiring to torture his fellow citizens in order to maintain his hold on power. The new indictment, unsealed Thursday, adds pressure on the ousted authoritarian leader already fighting drug trafficking offenses. Maduro, who was previously charged with participating in a conspiracy to send cocaine into the U.S., is now also facing allegations of human rights abuses during his reign as president of the oil-rich South American nation.” [editor’s note: Unless Venezuela is a US state or territory, there’s no US jurisdiction to try those allegations – TLK] (10/08/26)
“A local school board in Minnesota has taken censorship to absurd heights. During the public comment period at Foley Public School Board meetings, concerned citizens are forbidden from saying not only the names of school staff and officials but even their titles. These revelations come from Blake and Katy DeMarais, concerned parents of a disabled and nonverbal special education student in the district. Over the summer, the parents complained that the district was failing to provide educational services to their son, only to be censored in a public meeting. … the Foley school board trampled on the DeMaraises’ First Amendment rights. When a school board opens a meeting to public comment, it can’t censor its constituents for criticizing school staff, much less simply naming them or mentioning their titles.” (10/07/26)
“As the midterms draw near, I’ve been thinking about the role art plays in catalyzing political change. On September 12, the documentary film NAZA, which interrogates the systems used by the Israel government to target and calculate Palestinian civilian casualities in Gaza, was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival after receiving a 25-minute standing ovation.” (10/08/26)
“The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them. … The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them.” (10/07/26)
