“Chama-chama-chama-chameleon”: The Saga of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

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I know, I know, it’s “karma-chameleon” but “chama” works better for this article (or does it?).  A sort of syllogism perhaps.  How???  Well, … “if this and this, then that” seems to fit.  And I wrote “sort of”. We’ll need to let it play out.

Anyway ….

We just saw a major league electoral blowout as the United States electorate everywhere turned on Mr. Trump’s betrayal of his 2024 electoral promises and evidently seems to want to prove that he and his family are much better at corruption than was Mr. Biden.  Not an easy task but no one can say that Mr. Trump and family are not giving it their all.  Still, it’s amazing watching the current Democratic Party leadership destroy that political party’s chances for the presidency in 2028 even before their newly elected majorities take control of Congress in January.  Obviously their betrayal of the voters will assure most of the Democratic Party’s Congressional delegation of a huge haul from AIPAC (or whatever its nominee entity is or will be), well, … at least their fair share.  They don’t want it all going to the GOP.  But the new group of democratic socialists in the Democratic Party are opposed to AIPAC and to genocide and to funding Israeli socialism (socialism is best enjoyed at home they seem to think, with things like universal healthcare, subsidized education, decent housing, a social safety net, etc.), and they despise their party’s current Congressional leadership: Hakeem Jeffries who hopes to become Speaker in the House of Representatives in 2027 and Chuck Schumer who hopes to again become the majority leader in the Senate.  They insist on change, but ….

They have a plant among them, a spy, a quisling, a cleverly disguised traditionalist who walks, talks and smells like a progressive, at least until it’s time to irrevocably place her bets.  Then, …   Well, let’s look at a bit of history.  I am, of course, referring to the “AOC”, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Hispanic five term Congresswoman from Queens and the Bronx, New York[1]:

  • On January 3, 2021 she voted for Nancy Pelosi for House Speaker despite intense pressure from progressives to withhold her vote in a “Force the Vote” campaign designed to extract a floor vote on Medicare for All. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argued that party unity was necessary at that moment and that withholding votes without a viable alternative would not achieve the policy goal;
  • On September 23, 2021 she voted “Present” on Israel’s Iron Dome Funding breaking with fellow “Squad” members (including Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Cori Bush) who voted “no.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez changed her vote at the last minute from “no” to “present” on a standalone bill providing $1 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. The move drew sharp criticism from progressive activists, and she later apologized to constituents for the confusion and pain caused by the shift;
  • On November 30, 2022 she voted to impose a labor contract on freight rail workers to prevent a nationwide strike, even though the main bill lacked the guaranteed paid sick leave that rail unions and progressive groups demanded. While she also voted for a separate companion bill to add seven days of sick leave (which later failed in the Senate), her vote on the primary enforcement bill drew a formal rebuke from the Democratic Socialists of America and contrasted with fellow Squad member Rashida Tlaib, who voted “no”;
  • On April 12, 2023 she joined the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as a dues paying member after previously having joined progressive Democrats in boycotting it over its policies against primary challengers to incumbents.  Membership in that club cost her $260,000 in party dues which she gladly paid, framing the contribution as a way to help protect Democratic seats and build influence within party institutions, though some socialist groups criticized the move as funding the party establishment; and
  • On July 6, 2023, she formally endorsed President Joe Biden’s re-election bid well ahead of the primary season, bypassing progressive primary challengers like Marianne Williamson and drawing pushback from progressive elements who felt she was aligning too closely with a corrupt, war mongering administration.

Thus, as a purported progressive, she’s been a bad, bad girl.

And now? 

Now she’s endorsed reviled AIPAC toady Hakeem Jeffries despite intense opposition from the voters who just handed the Democratic Party a huge midterm electoral victory and from the new coterie of democratic socialist who insist on a party free of ties to AIPAC and Israel. Insist on a party that places the progressive agenda and United States’ residents (legal or otherwise) first, you know, things Israelis enjoy at the expense of United States tax payers, things like universal healthcare, subsidized education, decent housing, a social safety net, etc.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is not, as Republicans like to portray, a dummy whose background prior to her election was focused solely on the hospitality industry.  She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in international relations and economics, cum laude, from the Pardee School of Global Studies and the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University in 2011 where she was also a John F. Lopez Fellow (an experience-based learning program sponsored by the National Hispanic Institute).  During her time in college she also interned in the Boston office of Senator Ted Kennedy where she worked on foreign affairs and, as the only Spanish speaking member of that staff, on immigration issues.  She did work for a time as a bartender and waitress after the death of her father to help pay off student loans and to prevent her family’s home from going into foreclosure but that has no relevance to her credentials other than perhaps, having helped her understand the issues faced by her constituents somewhat better.  The family bought their house in Yorktown Heights, New York (a suburb in Westchester County, about 30 miles north of New York City) in the early 1990s for $150,000 and sold it in 2016 for $355,000 (it’s currently valued at $500,000).  But after that, during the 2016 presidential election she worked as a volunteer community organizer in the South Bronx for Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign and following the 2016 campaign, she traveled to North Dakota to join the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline, an experience she credits with inspiring her to run for office.

So, no dummy there.  But while far from a dummy, she is also far from being a progressive, and far from being genuine. Some examples:

  • During her first term in Congress complaints were filed with the Federal Election Commission alleging that her 2018 campaign and an affiliated political action committee (Brand New Congress) improperly routed funds through a limited liability company controlled by her then-chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti. Sophisticated and clever, but not very honest or honorable.  However, as is frequently the case in peccadillos (Spanish for little sins) involving elected officials, no formal enforcement penalties were issued against her regarding those filings.
  • Critics have periodically questioned her credibility over public statements such as a 2019 controversy regarding staged photos taken near a fence at a migrant detention facility in Tornillo, Texas and her 2021 account of her experience inside the Capitol complex during the January 6 attack, which opponents argued was exaggerated.  She was just play acting perhaps, her public demands it of her.
  • Following her attendance at the September 2021 Met Gala (where she wore a custom gown emblazoned with “Tax the Rich”), watchdog groups filed complaints alleging she accepted impermissible gifts, including free admission for her partner and unpaid luxury services.  Furthermore, a March 2023 report by the Office of Congressional Ethics revealed that she did not pay several vendors (including her hairstylist, makeup artist, and dress designer) until months after the event and only after the Office of Congressional Ethics began its inquiry.  After a three-and-a-half-year investigation, the House Committee on Ethics concluded in July 2025 that Ocasio-Cortez violated House gift rules. Specifically, the panel found she impermissibly accepted free admission for her fiancé, Riley Roberts, and underpaid the fair market value for her rented dress and accessories.  Rather than issuing a formal sanction or censure, the panel ordered her to pay approximately $3,000 in additional personal funds ($2,733.28 for apparel rentals, $36.71 for a custom hairpiece, and $250 for her fiancé’s meal) to close the matter, which she agreed to pay.  Peccadilloes one more time.
  • In March of 2026, the National Legal and Policy Center filed a complaint with federal election officials and the Office of Congressional Conduct alleging that the Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign improperly spent nearly $19,000 on a psychiatrist listed under “leadership training and consulting,” arguing that the payments were not legitimate campaign expenses.  One more time; just a peccadillo.

Well, to be honest, in many ways that sounds quite a bit like another purported progressive democratic socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s initial mentor, Bernie Sanders.  The man with great eloquence but a white flag in his pocket, one he always seems ready to waive when victory seems probable.  Think of the 2016 presidential campaign and his betrayal of the “Sanderistas” at that year’s presidential campaign.  Perhaps that’s the image that most impacted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s political formation.

Still, she’s certainly a show-woman and talented in manipulation of social media.  She dubbed herself with the sigils “AOC” thinking it would be cool and now, like traditional Democratic Party legislators (think, e.g., Nancy Pelosi),  she seems to be slavering at the trough[2], trying to make believe she’s a social democrat when she’s really, as she’s always been, a same-old-same-old power hungry chameleon: “chama-chama-chama-chameleon, she comes and goes, she comes and goes”.  Real progressives pray she’d just “stay away”.  Not that she’s not entitled to her opinions, to vote however she feels, etc., just that “a progressive democratic socialist” she’s not.  She is extremely ambitious and not just cunning but also a talented tactician, one who hopes to be president, if not in 2028, when she may run for the Senate to avoid the headaches associated with a two rather than six year electoral cycle, at least soon, perhaps 2032 or 2036.  And if she does, she wants as many powerful people on her side as she can get, and that may then apparently include the AIPAC group.

She’s been very successful in evading the consequences of her misconduct and of her duplicitous allegiance to the powers that be in her party but perhaps her endorsement of Hakeem Jeffries at this moment will prove her undoing, at least with progressives.

Soooo, …

Why does the word syllogism sound as though it ought to refer to something “silly”?  What ever happened to onomatopoeia?  I hate the way it (onomatopoeia) is spelled!  And if Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer lead the next Congress, and if as would then probably be the case, the next Congress again betrays the electorate, perhaps it won’t matter who the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate will be in 2028, or 2032, or 2036.

My apologies to chameleons everywhere, “chama”, karma or otherwise.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, geopolitical commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

[1] Her district, the 14th, covers sections of Astoria, College Point, Corona, North Corona, East Elmhurst, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and Woodside in Queens and City Island, Country Club, Pelham Bay, Parkchester, Throggs Neck, Hunts Point, and Mott Haven in the Bronx.

[2] Although, to be fair, apparently not the AIPAC trough, at least not yet.

Of Love and Life and All Those Other Things

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Is love altruistic or desire based?  Is it an intangible resonance between souls independent of their volition or a negotiated deal based on expectations and hoped for profit?  Is it explicable or undefinable?

Do we love the divine or fear him, her, them or it?  Does the divine love us or fear us?  Does the divine even exist and, if so, did we create him, her, them or it?

Is valor undervalued, overrated or misunderstood?  Just what is perception and is it a mirror based, projective phenomenon or does it involve at least a trace of truth?  And what is truth anyway other than something that is seemingly slipping away?

Is sanity a valid norm, a valid goal or none of the above?

Why does writing something pithy make the author feel so well even if it’s probable no one else will ever read it; and just what is pithy anyway and why does it rhyme with prissy (or even with something of a more urinary basis)?

All worthy questions without adequate answers, sort of like speculations about what follows for us after our term on the mortal plane is completed.  And what is the mortal plane anyway and why does it rhyme with plain and pain?

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, geopolitical commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

An Intriguing Possibility for 2028

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The 2026 elections were surprising, primarily because of the willingness of Republican voters to break ranks with their party in the national interest, to break their traditional voting allegiance seeking instead to attain the broken pledges of Trump’s successful 2024 campaign.  No more wars, concentration on the needs of United States citizens, minimizing corruption.  By contrast, the majority of the Democrats currently serving in Congress and those that will assume office early next January seem inclined to ignore the demands of those who just gave them a majority and to continue along the path set for them by their AIPAC masters.  That was clear in the recent vote to impeach Secretary of War Peter Hegseth.  There, eleven members of the Democratic Party’s contingent in the House of Representatives (all but one beneficiaries of AIPAC largesse) failed for one reason or another to make it to the vote thus saving Mr. Hegseth job; a sort of “the dog ate my homework moment” they expect their electorate to swallow.

The proposed leadership of the Democrats in the next Congress, Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker in the House of Representatives and Chuck Schumer as majority leader in the Senate, Israeli Firsters both, promise more of the same.  Plenty of noise with hearings involving the president, his family and allies but only superficial inquiry into the Epstein scandals and especially continued allegiance to Israel and its perpetual wars and to its perpetual draining of United States’ taxpayers’ pockets leaving little for education, healthcare or the social safety net (although Israel enjoys them all).

Ironically, the foregoing may open an avenue for a return to power by Republicans in 2028, but only if Democratic voters are as willing to put their country ahead of their party as were Republican voters in 2026.  And if, learning from this year’s massive defeat, the GOP selects its presidential candidate from among the current group of Republican America First rebels, e.g., people like Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Kent, Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Jackson Hinkle or Rand Paul.  The amazing thing would be if the new group of democratic socialists in the Democratic Party, both elected officials and voters, joined with those Republicans in seeking a real answer to the clamor for change by NOT selecting their presidential candidate from the current list of favorites, all AIPAC toadies, but instead, by helping form a real bipartisan, America First movement.  Perhaps Democrats like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, newly minted senator James Talarico, Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Julia Salazar and Brandon Johnson might bolt their party and join Republican rebels in a national unity ticket.  Wouldn’t that be something?

Notwithstanding how likely the betrayal of their voters (if not their funders) by the Democratic Party’s current and prospective leaders and the bulk of its elected officials is, the likelyhood of a unity movement seems improbable.  But improbable is not the same as impossible and perhaps the awakening of GOP voters’ consciences and common sense can somehow or other, notwithstanding the duplicitous legacy press, infect enough honest, intelligent and sensible Democrats to make a unity ticket that places the interests of the United States first a reality.

Unlikely, I know, but where there’s life there’s hope, and the 2026 midterm elections demonstrated that at least among the voters (if not among the Democratic Party’s current and prospective leadership), there was a trace of decency (instead of polarizing partisanship). 

Perhaps even a trace of life.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, geopolitical commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

The Yokes on Us

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The recent United States midterm elections were not an endorsement of the corrupt Democratic Party and its Israeli First leadership but of the corrupt Republican Party and its Israeli First leadership, something which leading GOP dissidents had been warning about for years; dissident leaders like media personalities Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes and Jackson Hinkle, like former director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent, like members of Congress Marjorie Taylor Greens and Thomas Massie and current Senator Rand Paul.  The election in numerous aspects was a mirror image of the 2024 elections when the electorate rejected the Israel First leadership of the Biden administration thinking that in Donald Trump, the United States public would finally come first.  The “yoke” was on us.  It may well be again.

Instead of reacting to the recent electoral revolt in a sensible, self-preservatory fashion, the Trump administration has instead doubled down on Israeli control of the United States government by appointing Stephen Miller as White House chief of staff.  However, the reality is that even in the Congress that will take office on January 4, 2027 (the 3rd is a Sunday), AIPAC will remain firmly in control having bought and paid for virtually the entire Congressional membership, both Republican and Democratic (518 of the 535 members, 247 Democrats and 268 Republicans[1]).  That is especially true under the current leadership of the Democratic Party, i.e., Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer and somehow, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, and that, notwithstanding the rejection of AIPAC by the electorate and by an interesting group of democratic socialist elected as Democrats. 

As with the dissident Republicans, there are great dissident Democrats, especially among the emerging democratic socialist coterie, e.g., Zohran Mamdani, newly minted senator James Talarico, Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Julia Salazar and Brandon Johnson, among others.  Unfortunately, the legacy media will do all it can to obfuscate the dissidents in both parties and preserve Zionist political hegemony.  And the legacy media will warn us of impending disasters as we are purportedly threatened by Muslim hoards seeking to impose Sharia law throughout the United States, or hordes of immigrants seeking to change the nature of United States society, or communists who hate us because of our purported freedoms, or crazed liberals (or reactionary conservatives, take your pick).  Or of imminent Russian or Chinese domination.  Or perhaps soon, of space aliens seeking to steal the natural resources we’ve plundered from others.

So, what might the future hold? 

Well, most likely, the highly polarized “same old same old” as the legacy media, following the orders of the billionaire class and its very own Deep State (i.e., the military industrial complex against which Ike warned us so many decades ago, now joined by the intelligence community), keep us at one another’s’ throats instead of permitting us to wake and go after those who pillage us constantly through the only form of socialism that is deemed tolerable, the corporate welfare state[2].  And the rich will continue to get richer, much richer, much, much richer (if somewhat fewer), the poor will continue to get, well not poorer, that’s hardly possible, but much more numerous. And too many of the best and brightest among us will be sent off to give their lives and health, both physical and mental, in perpetual wars, watched from afar by the rich and powerful and their families; and when they return (if they do), maimed and psychotic, asked what they’ve done for their masters recently.

Unless, of course, we “the huddled masses yearning to breathe free”, somehow wake up and cast off the yokes that keep us enthralled. 

But how likely is that?
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

[1] Specific, per member details available, see “AIPAC Recipients List 2026”, Who Funds My Rep?, available at https://whofundsmyrep.com/rankings.

[2] Well, or else United States funded Israeli welfare such as free health care, free education, subsidized housing and alimentation, etc.

Realistic Reflections on the Blue Tsunami of November 3, 2026

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Hey guys, Cassandra calling.  From Troy, three thousand two hundred years ago.  I’m a prophetess after all.  I hate to stomp on your euphoria but ….

On Tuesday, November 3, 2026, the United States political system experienced a “Blue Tsunami” but, while voters elected more Democratic Party candidates than Republicans, they did not endorse that political party’s leadership.  Instead, they rejected the brutal corruption, deception and immorality in office of “the Donald”, Donald John Trump, which is a very different thing.  In doing so, they joined important Republicans who had already done so, appalled by his the betrayal of his 2024 campaign promises involving putting an end to perpetual war and focusing on economic bread and butter issues, on minimizing polarization and putting America first, they joined people like media personalities Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes and Jackson Hinkle, like former director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent, like former members of Congress Marjorie Taylor Greens and Thomas Massie and current Senator Rand Paul.  Unlike those honest protestors, the current Congressional leaders of the Democratic Party, Hakeem Jeffries in the House and Chuck Schumer in the Senate, both from New York, are bought and paid for representatives of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Israel firsters, as are a major portion of the Democratic Party’s Congressional Representatives and Senators, those who will control the new Congress that will assume its role on either January 3rd or 4th, 2027 (the 3rd is on a Sunday).  While some progressives and democratic socialists won, and that was amazing and heartening, the vast majority of the victors were the same old crowd just waiting for their turn at the trough. So, notwithstanding the wishes of the electorate as clearly indicated in the recent elections, the more things change, the more too many are likely to stay the same.  That President Trump responded to his electoral defeat by optimistically stating the he looks forward to “working” with the new Congressional majority may well tell us more than we want to know.  I was pleasantly surprised that the election took place at all, and that its results were accepted, but in large part that was due to the Supreme Court’s unusual decision not to become involved in support of Trumpian aspirations-

There were superficially positive developments but they are probably largely illusory in the greater scheme of things.  Or they will be without further action on our part.  Real action, not just gripes and complaints.  While AIPAC, which has long controlled both major United States political parties, is facing an apparently unprecedented structural crisis of faith within the United States’ citizenry, its control and Israel’s influence over the Congress and both major political parties is only superficially diminished.  It’s true that for the first time in modern political history we saw marquee progressive candidates win major statewide races, not only in spite of AIPAC’s opposition but by actively campaigning against it, AIPAC still commands hundreds of millions of dollars, owns (or leases) the majority of the Congress and has hundreds of allies in positions of political, economic and military power.  Thus United States foreign policy, where traditionalist Democratic Party legislators are at least as anxious as President Trump to do Israel’s bidding, is unlikely to change in any material manner.  The new Democratic Congressional majority is unlikely to insist that the kidnapped Venezuelan president be released and returned to office, or that the oil plundered from Venezuela be returned.  Or that the rightwing mini-Trumps installed by United States and Israeli intelligence agencies in most of Latin America be replaced in honest democratic elections.  Instead of a quest for peace, they are likely to insist on enlargement of the proxy war against Russia through the puppet regime in the Ukraine and in renewed antagonism against China, especially with respect to its province of Taiwan.  The reality is that now, after the election, the goal of the Democratic leadership, just like that of their Republican counterparts, involves, not the “common welfare” but securing a victory in the 2028 elections.  But perhaps that will require more than just embarrassing Republicans in the executive branch and the Trump family “syndicate” in particular.  Perhaps, for a change, it will require more than just instilling fear in the hearts of potential voters.  Perhaps it will require meeting the demands of the electorate for peace, economic prosperity and an emphasis on the welfare of the United States population, whether citizens or not, rather than filling the coffers of the military industrial complex (now fused with the intelligence agencies into the Deep State) against which Ike warned us so long ago.  But that is not a likely scenario.

At any rate, don’t expect all that much in kept promises.  A thorough investigation into the sickly putrid Jeffrey Epstein saga would embarrass too many Democrats and too many very powerful political donors, and it would provide devastating evidence of the immorality of United States, European and Israeli intelligence agencies for whom pedophilia and murder were and continue to be useful tools.  That is an inquiry which the Deep State will guide into a maze of obfuscation from which, as in the case of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy or the downing of New York’s Twin Towers, verity is very unlikely to emerge.  And as to the quest for peace?  That would eliminate the greatest profit generation enterprise on the planet, perpetual war, which in turn would stem the redistribution of wealth from the populace to the billionaire caste, the only form of socialism Americans are taught to respect.  Thus that too will be deflected through manufactured threats designed to maintain us all in a state of perpetual anxiety and insecurity (beware the Muslim hordes trying to steal our democracy, and the communists and the socialists, and the foreigners yearning to breathe free).  Support by leaders of both major parties for the Zionist quest for a Greater Israel may be obfuscated but it will probably not be diminished, with efforts made to humanize genocide and ethnic cleansing paid for by United States taxpayers.  Those crimes against humanity are, as far as both Democrats and Republicans are concerned, immoral only when our interests are negatively impacted.

There will be plenty of subpoenaing to embarrass Republicans but not enough to effect meaningful change other than, perhaps, electorally, and the response will be plenty of vetoing, resulting in more government gridlock and polarization and the federal judiciary will become more politicized than ever.  Explanations blaming others will bloom and befuddle us all, as usual.  And it is all too likely that we will revert to our instinctive emotional shells, backing the political leaders who got and get us into the messes we and the rest of the world (other than the privileged few) inhabit.

Still, not everything is depressingly pessimistic.  There may be a few rays of hope.  After all, America First Republicans and progressive democratic socialists have somehow germinated out of the political compost that surrounds us.  Thus, notwithstanding the foregoing, there may be an out, but that is not a likely scenario.  It would require us to embrace the democratic socialist rebels in the Democratic Party and the America First rebels in the Republican Party and to select from among them, candidates for the presidency in 2028 rather than from among traditional politicians, politicians like JD Vance or Marco Rubio on the Republican side or Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg, Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear and Gretchen Whitmer on the Democratic side, all of whom are imposed on us by AIPAC and the billionaire caste (interesting name for a band).  Perhaps the electorate will gravitate to people who have rejected AIPAC and its bribes (errr, donations, now to be disguised through a third party maze), people like Joe Kent, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Jackson Hinkle, Marjorie Taylor Greens, Thomas Massie or Rand Paul on the Republican side or the newly minted senator James Talarico, or Cori Bush, or Jamaal Bowman, or Julia Salazar or Brandon Johnson in the Democratic Party.  Unfortunately, Zohran Mamdani is not eligible having been born abroad.  But they would have to survive the calumnious brutality of the legacy media and that is a feat rarely accomplished.

So, for now, perhaps all week long, let’s enjoy the sort of defeat of the disgusting, corrupt and hypocritical Trumpian MAGA political parody and its AIPAC masters, but let’s not hold our breath awaiting better times at the hands of their Democratic Party opponents.  Only we, acting together, ignoring fear and focusing on our hope and decency can make a difference; a difference whose goal is not the accumulation of wealth and power or world hegemony but the common attainment of equity, justice and opportunity, of the “common welfare” promised by the United States Constitution. 

The recent election will not take us there but perhaps a door has been forced opened and we can stick a leg in to keep it that way.

At least for a while.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Probabilities on the First Tuesday following the First Monday in November, 2026

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Reliable projections point to a blue wave on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November, 2026, perhaps a tsunami, but ….

Seriously ….

What are the chances that the current Trump administration will accept electoral defeat in an existential election, existential because if it loses it will have to face a hostile Congress with subpoena power and the power of the purse and, theoretically (albeit not practically) conviction power following impeachment?  What are the chances when it does not abide by any law, international, constitutional, federal, state or local?  After all, the only moral that counts is Donald Trump’s opinion[1].

Obviously, no matter the results next Tuesday, the presidential pardon power will shield the members of Mr. Trump’s administration and his family (or most of them, some may be thrown to the wolves) from federal criminal liability no matter what (as did the Biden administration), but that does not shield them from prosecution, incarceration or fines at the state and local level.  Then again, a compliant and subservient Supreme Court may well find a way to extend the scope of the pardon power or restrict the power of states and localities to work around it.  But “facts” in the hands of a real press can be dangerous things.  Of course, that assumes a “real press” rather than a subservient outlet for propaganda which hides even more than it distorts.  Still it’s a bit harder to muzzle a hostile Congress with its fingers holding tight to the federal purse.  Better to avoid the problem, but how?

Well, until the unstoppable force hit the unmovable wall in Brazil last week, the United States and Israel had conducted numerous successful experiments in electoral manipulation through the use of “bot” controlled social media spewing false information, algorithmic manipulation, control of electoral software and oodles of cash, indeed, manipulation of public transport seemed that it would be a great tool to assure proper results, at least until a pesky judicial system and idiots in the pro United States/Israeli camp screwed up and the elections were extended.  Still, all but one recent election was steered in the “right” direction, regardless of how voters actually voted and the methods designed and perfected by the “deep state”, now controlled by Trump & Company, can be very effective.  How effective in the United States, where it obviously seems they have been used by both branches of the uniparty since at least the 206 election, remains to be seen.  But it seems a pretty good bet that with an utterly ruthless administration in charge of the system, the polls and projections will once again prove to, amazingly, have been completely mistaken. 

So what if that constitutes a defacto coup d’état.

The sick thing is that such a likely defacto coup against the electorate is only possible (some would say likely), because the other branch of the AIPAC owned uniparty (i.e., the Democrats), when it was last in office, created precedents that their purported opponents can now use, not against them, but against us all. So, we really should at least ask ourselves: “Just how stupid have we been and how negligent in our duty as citizens that the foregoing is not only a possibility but a probability?”

As instructed by both branches of the uniparty as well as the unipress, we’ve voted in favor of purported “lesser evils” for so long that all we have is evil, plutocratic evil in a system where the purportedly sacred constitution is less useful than toilet paper (not to denigrate the immense value of toilet paper).  And we, the stupid, naïve, manipulable voters are to blame, not the army of straw people the uniparty shoves in our faces, i.e., the communists and socialists and Muslims and liberals and progressives and conservatives and libertarians and academics and blacks and Hispanics and racists, etc.

On the other hand, what choices have we had, each seemingly worse that the other in an endless cycle: Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump!!!  Of course, there were other candidates but our purportedly free unipress kept them safely hidden while urging us not to “waste our votes”.  “Move on, nothing here to see: Ross Perot, Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Cornel West, etc., who the ‘Hell’ were they?”

And who de we have sitting in the wings, according to the latest “polls (assuming Mr. Trump ever relinquishes the presidency, after all, he and his billionaire friends are avidly paying for research into immortality, of the immoral variant):  Well, amazingly, Kamala Harris (if Hillary does not decide to run again); yuck!!!!; and J.D. Vance, or perhaps Marco Rubio, (yuck!!!).

So …. ¿Now what?

Somewhere an immense flock of happy chickens are coming home to roost, their feckless, errr, I mean fearless leader, cackling, suggesting we just lie back and enjoy it.  After all, civic obligations are pretty much of a drag.  Or, to put it another way, a bit more artfully, as recently departed Patrick Stewart once declaimed in his role as Locutos of Borg (perhaps paraphrasing Elliot Brandt): “Resistance is futile. Your life, as it has been, is over. From this time forward, you will service us.” 

Actually, it’s been that way for a while.

Which is not to discourage the reader (hopefully more than one) from following president Trump’s advice to “vote early and vote often”!
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

[1] Kanno-Youngs, Z., Pager, T., Rogers, K., & Sanger, D. E. (2026, January 8): “Trump lays out a vision of power restrained only by my own morality”. The New York Times. nytimes.com

Flávio Bolsonaro, a Perfect Partner for the Trump Family “Syndicate”

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So, no surprise that Flávio Bolsonaro, facing pre-election charges of corruption, money laundering, and tax evasion, successfully fled to the United States instead of facing the legal process in Brazil (as did the winner of Sunday’s elections, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva several years ago when he was falsely accused); all while the United States holds legal Venezuelan president Nicholas Madura and his wife prisoners after a kidnapping which violated all norms of international law.  I guess the severity of a crime is in the eyes of the beholder.  Especially in this era when law is an irrelevancy, domestically and internationally, and only power counts.

While not formally endorsing Flávio, the United States did everything it could to get him elected, as it did with its other “pet” candidates in Colombia, Peru, Honduras, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, etc. The collaboration spanned long-term institutional advice from the United States far-right to direct strategic involvement by Trump administration officials and political venture capitalists during the 2026 campaign cycle.

The strategic advisory pipeline from the United States operated on three distinct levels:

  • During the 2026 presidential campaign, two prominent United States State Department advisers—Darren Beattie (Senior Adviser for Western Hemisphere Affairs) and Ricardo Pita (Deputy Assistant Secretary)—actively led a strategic campaign aimed at restoring the Bolsonaro clan to power. According to investigative reports by journalists from The Business Standard and other outlets, these officials helped formulate tactical maneuvers to weaken President Lula da Silva, including successfully lobbying for 25% United States tariffs on Brazilian imports and advocating for the classification of Brazilian domestic criminal factions as foreign terrorist organizations to tilt electoral momentum in Flávio Bolsonaro’s favor.
  • In April 2026, the Rockbridge Network, a prominent United States conservative political venture capital fund co-founded by American tech investors and current United States Vice President Vance, drafted a highly confidential blueprint titled “Rockbridge Network Brasil”.  The group formally proposed creating a 23-member Technology Council—composed of 19 foreign business and political leaders—to directly advise Senator Flávio Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party presidential campaign.  The strategy aimed to provide financial backing to remodel Brazil’s right-wing political landscape, mirroring American conservative operations targeting the media, universities, and legislative strategy.
  • According to reporting by Agência Pública, United States strategists actively advised the Bolsonaro family on specific tactical playbooks, including: Deploying pre-emptive rhetoric to cast doubt on the legitimacy of electronic voting machines; relying heavily on alternative social media applications and coordinated digital ecosystems to orchestrate campaigns outside traditional media oversight; following the exact tactical blueprint utilized during the 2020 United States presidential election to reject concession, file immediate legal challenges, and push for the annulment of voting results when trailing in the count.

As to Flávio and his long standing criminal allegations.  They include the following:

  • The Banco Master Movie Financing Scheme.  The primary investigation centers on whether the Bolsonaro family misused funds or accepted bribes under the guise of movie production.  Favio is accused of receiving tens of millions of dollars from Daniel Vorcaro, the disgraced former owner of Banco Master, to finance an unreleased biographical film about his father (former President Jair Bolsonaro) titled “The Dark Horse”.  Leaked voice memos and text messages from May 2026 revealed Flávio asking Vorcaro for $26.8 million. Authorities allege the funds were intended to bankroll his political agenda and cover the expenses of his brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, rather than legitimate production.
  • The Social Security Pension Fraud & Money Laundering Scheme.  A separate, broader inquiry links Flávio to systemic fraud involving unauthorized deductions from elderly citizens’ pensions.  Prosecutors allege Flávio used sports betting platforms and shell corporations to launder fraudulent deductions taken from Brazil’s social security pension system.  Federal police discovered that Flávio held “master user” bank access to accounts belonging to Alcazar Holdings, a company tied to a lawyer accused of laundering over $1 billion through fraud.
  • The “Rachadinha Scheme.  Between 2004 and 2018, while Flávio Bolsonaro was serving as a state representative in the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro (ALERJ), he was accused of running a criminal organization that siphoned public funds by employing “ghost workers” and forcing legislative aides to return large portions of their government salaries back to the Bolsonaro family.  Flávio’s legislative office hired numerous individuals as aides who rarely, if ever, showed up for actual public service work (ghost employees). Some of these employees were even revealed to be relatives of notorious Rio paramilitary militia bosses.  Once those employees received their taxpayer-funded government salaries, they were forced to withdraw the cash or transfer up to 90% of their earnings back to the operation’s coordinator.  Fabrício Queiroz, a former police officer and longtime close friend of the Bolsonaro family, acted as Flávio’s driver and chief political aide. Brazil’s financial intelligence unit (COAF) flagged over 1.2 million reais ($220,000) in highly suspicious, rapid cash deposits moving through Queiroz’s bank account.  State prosecutors formally charged Flávio Bolsonaro in 2020 with embezzlement, money laundering, and misappropriation, alleging the diverted public funds were integrated into his personal wealth via a chocolate shop.  Siphoned cash was reportedly mixed into the daily revenue lines of a boutique franchise chocolate shop co-owned by Flávio in Rio de Janeiro to give the illicit funds a legitimate commercial appearance. Prosecutors alleged that Flávio routinely used large bags of undeclared cash to purchase luxury apartments in Copacabana and later a luxury mansion in Brasília, artificially simulating capital gains to clean the money. The suspicious financial trail also tracked thousands of dollars in direct checks written by Queiroz to Jair Bolsonaro’s wife, Michelle Bolsonaro.

In late 2021, the original criminal case stalled. In a highly controversial legal victory for the Bolsonaro family, Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice (STJ) and the Supreme Court invalidated the core financial evidence. The courts ruled that prosecutors improperly bypassed formal judicial authorizations when acquiring Flávio’s initial financial intelligence reports (COAF data), resulting in the official dismissal of the original “rachadinha” charges on technical, procedural grounds rather than an acquittal on the merits. However, the political and legal landscape has rapidly shifted following his recent defeat in the October 2026 presidential runoff election and escape, first to Argentina and then to the United States. Lawyers have petitioned federal prosecutors to officially bypass the previously tainted evidence and reopen investigations into the siphoned funds, citing fresh, independent evidence regarding hidden safety deposit boxes used by the family during the peak of the ALERJ scheme.

Based on the foregoing, it’s no wonder Flávio was obviously a perfect partner for the Trump administration and its allies in Brazil.  Plenty to hide, plenty to lose, and an escape hatch?  Essential.  The Trump relationship with the Bolsonaro “clan” dates back to Jair Bolsonaro’s 2018 and 2022 campaigns. One of Jair’s other sons, former Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, made over 70 visits to the United States forming a close relationship with former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and other conservative political architects like Jason Miller.  Now, it remains to be seen how the Trump and Bolsonaro families can find a way to mutually profit, given the failure of Flávio’s presidential aspirations.

The biggest loser or biggest winner from Flavio’s flight is probably his second stepmother, Jair’s third wife Michelle, a political power on her own in the right wing powerhouse Liberal Party, more so than any of the Bolsonaro brothers.  During the recent parliamentary elections she attained the highest vote ever for the Senate and has a huge personal following among evangelical Christians and among conservative women.  Flavio’s flight eliminates him as a political rival (their relationship was not smooth).  On the other hand, his cowardice when compared to current president Lula may well tarnish the entire Bolsonaro clan given that he is the third member to flee to the United States (although his father returned to face the justice system after two months).  Especially after he vowed to his followers not to do so and to remain in Brazil and prove his innocence.

Luckily for the Brazilian political right, President Lula is term limited from running in the 2030 presidential elections and has no viable successors visible and, of course, there is no telling what Donald Trump may do in the future.  He has already been urged to kidnap and remove President Lula by right wing Florida Congressman Carlos Giménez (a major Trump ally), as he did to president Maduro and his wife in Venezuela.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Perspectives as of October 27, 2026 Concerning the Upcoming United States Congressional Elections

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The current probabilities, based on national polling aggregates and statistical models (using artificial intelligence as a research tool), with one week to go until the November 3, 2026 United States midterm Congressional elections, seem to project a significant “blue wave”, perhaps even a “blue tsunami”,  driven by slumping approval ratings for President Donald Trump and disapproval of his subordination of United States interests to Israel, especially with respect to the Pearl Harbor-like attack by the United States and Israel against Iran and United States support for Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine and Lebanon.  The following synthesized breakdown of projections from major polling agencies, forecasters, and betting markets outlines the current expectations for both chambers.  However, a caveat, rather than an exact science, polling has been largely converted into a tool for manipulation of results and thus results have, in the recent past, been wildly inaccurate.

In the House of Representatives (the “House”), Republicans currently hold 218 seats, Democrats hold 212 with one independent and four vacancies.  Projections imply that after the November elections, Democrats will hold between 229 and 242 seats while Republicans will hold between 193 and 206.  In the Senate, Republicans currently hold 53 seats with an additional vote by Vice President Vance in the event of a tie and Democrats and their “independent” allies hold 47.  That is projected to change after the elections with Democrats expected to hold between 51 and 54 seats and Republicans between 49 and 51 but, in the event of a tie, once more Vice President Vance would cast the deciding vote.  There is, however, a significant wild card, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.  He is currently a Democrat but might well elect to caucus with or vote with the GOP.  There are also a number of Democratic Senators with deep ties to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (“AIPAC”) such as Democratic Party Senate leader Charles E. Schumer, Nevada’s Jacky Rosen, Californians Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, Pennsylvania Democrats Bob Casey and John Fetterman, Montana’s Jon Tester, Hawaii’s Mazie Hirono and surprisingly, Massachusetts’ Elizabeth Warren (among others), who are may join Republican Senators in matters of importance to Israel, the same being true in the House[1].

The following are the latest projections by major forecasting organizations:

  • As of October 26, Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) projected a 55% probability that Democrats would take complete control of both chambers (a unified Congress), with a 24% chance that Republicans would retain the Senate while losing the House and just a 19% chance that Republicans would hold on to both.  The projected seat breakdown assumes that Democrats will win 238 seats in the House and 51 seats in the Senate.
  • As of October 23, the Cook Political Report projected that a majority of House will be controlled by Democrats, placing 214 seats as solid, likely, or leaning Democratic—meaning Democrats only need to capture 4 out of the 17 unallocated “Toss-Up” seats to take the gavel.  As to the Senate, it places 7 seats in the true “toss-pp” category: Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas. To secure a 51-seat majority, Democrats must hold Michigan and successfully flip four of the remaining Republican-held states.
  • As of October 27, CBS News / YouGov Poll projected that Democrats would secure 229 seats in the House, an 11-seat buffer over the required 218 threshold.
  • As of October 27, PBS News / NPR / Marist Poll reflected a generic commanding 8-point lead (52% to 44%) among likely voters nationwide for Democrats in the upcoming elections. The poll highlighted strong enthusiasm indicators, with 71% of Democrats expressing high eagerness to vote compared to 61% of Republicans.
  • As of late October, the Polymarket & Kalshi Prediction Markets (a gaming platform) gave the Democratic Party a 91% to 92% chance of controlling the House and a 66% chance of capturing the Senate.

The foregoing may well be impacted on a personal level by the arrogance and lack of discursive objectivity of many Trump supporting Republicans in their interaction with potential voters who are not, “dyed in the wool” Trump supporters. I am among those who have been turned off by the hubris of Trump supporters, although, in all honesty, as an independent, I would never support any AIPAC backed candidate, whether Republican, Democratic, third party or independent.  Nonetheless, I am profoundly disappointed that so many United States voters who I respect and for whom I have profound affection, having studied with them or taught them, are among those who seem abysmally ignorant as to history, philosophy and international affairs and as to what communism, socialism or Islam really are, although they are totally convinced as to their expertise with respect to the foregoing.  It’s true that United States citizens have always tended to be unaware of a great deal outside the propaganda they are fed (and which I was also fed, and which, for a while, I taught) but they have become significantly more aggressive, counterintuitive and, in the long term (now heading towards the short term), bellicose in a counterproductive manner.  They seem trapped in echo chambers where they preach to each other as loudly and insistently as they can, disregarding contrary realities that they would need to understand in order to convince others, rather than to alienate them.  Perhaps given their current perspectives, that’s a good thing.

Many such people with whom I regularly associate and, outside of politics and religion, with whom I have a great deal in common, ironically consider themselves devout Christians while concurrently avowed capitalists, not realizing how incoherently inconsistent those positions are.  I am not a believer in the divinity of “Jesus” but am profoundly in favor of the doctrines which he is credited with espousing, doctrines such as “treating others as one would be treated”, acceptance of forgiveness and reformation as guiding principles and supporting the most disadvantaged among us, that, as contrasted with the intolerance and elitism favored by Saul of Tarsus who so thoroughly succeeded in distorting Jesus’ message.  I am a progressive democratic socialist, like Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Noam Chomsky, Salvador Allende, Clement Attlee, Olof Palme, Jawaharlal Nehru. Mohandas Gandhi, David Ben-Gurion, Willy Brandt, Eugene V. Debs, George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, Helen Keller and now, Zohran Mamdani, and thus, abhor both the Republican and Democratic parties.

At any event, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming elections, AIPAC’s control over the Democratic Party’s current and anticipated leadership means that even if Democratic Party candidates overwhelm their Republican opponents by historic margins, nothing is likely to change except for the political affiliation of the victims of lawfare.  That is so despite widespread voter dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party’s current leadership or with the control exercised by AIPAC over the Democratic (as well as Republican) Party.  Oddly, it is GOP dissidents who have become disenchanted by the Trump administration’s betrayal of his purported America First and antiwar pledges who espouse the most progressive, anti-AIPAC messaging.  People like Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Joe Kent, Senator Rand Paul, former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Representative Mark Amodei of Nevada, Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina and especially, Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie.  It’s ironic that GOP dissidents and democratic socialists in the Democratic Party both seem to believe that the changes they view as existentially necessary have to be accomplished through internal reform of their respective political parties rather than through an alliance between them given that they have so much more in common with each other than they do with the AIPAC controlled traditionalist in their current parties.  But that’s how politics has functioned ever since the presidential election of 1860 in the United States, in the United States where democracy is quasi-legally defined as a bipartisan dictatorship through legally favored duopoly.  Thus, the likelihood following the Congressional elections is, as is usual in United States politics, that the more things change, the more they either stay the same or become even worse.

Don’t forget to vote and, as president Trump privately urges, vote early and vote often.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026 (except for the image which is the property of the New Republic); all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

[1] In the current Congress, 247 Democrats and 268 Republicans in the House have direct financial support from AIPAC on record. Almost the entire current Senate has accepted pro-Israel PAC backing. The upcoming Congress will see a minor decline due to retirements and targeted general election dropouts where candidates have refused AIPAC alignment as a litmus test.

Initial Observations on the Results in the Second Round of Brazil’s Presidential Election

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In Brazil, unlike other Latin American countries, the foreign vote was not decidedly right wing.  Lula won by over 3.5% of the vote, well over four million votes, a turnaround of over six million votes with a virtually identical voter turnout.  In ancient Rome, generals participating in triumphal parades had a man dyed red standing behind them reminding them they were human.  At times, in two round presidential elections like Brazil’s, voters do the same, voting against someone in the first round as a warning, but supporting him or her in the second.  Nonetheless, the shock of the first round will probably lead to changes in Lula’s governance in areas involving crime and violence, and with respect to more attention to food basket economics. 

Because Lula will not be eligible for reelection in four years but many Bolsonaros will be, and because the Brazilian left lacks a viable successor, at least at present, the future does not look as bleak for the Brazilian right as a Bolsonaro victory would have been for the left.   Notwithstanding his impressive comeback victory, governing for Lula will prove extremely difficult given the right’s control over Congress.  His victory, however, is a serious defeat for President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s aspirations in Latin America and may bode ill for their own parties in the upcoming elections in their own countries.

Had Bolsonaro won, the United States would have quickly entered into long term agreements for natural resources, especially in the Amazon which would have been freed up for development and Israel would have gained another important foothold in Latin America.  There would have been significant deregulation and reduction of public spending, except with respect to police and the armed forces.  Integration with other Latin American countries would likely have been abandoned, as would Brazil’s leadership role in the BRICS.  The Constitution would likely have been significantly amended in a manner making it easier to reshape the Supreme Court and entrench right wing rule, and, given the right’s control of Congress, it still may be.

Interestingly, the orchestrated transportation delays in Lula oriented districts in Northern Brazil were overcome by the two hour voting extensions while the weather delays in the South were apparently not.  However, since both sides asked for the extension, neither side can legitimately challenge it. 

Pro-Bolsonaro evangelicals may be wondering why God intervened in that manner.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.  However, photograph copyright belongs to CNN.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Omens: Perdiccas, Phílippos and Aléxandros, the Argeads

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Somewhere, perhaps, a man whose proper name is Aléxandros Argead, walks and dreams strange dreams.  He is strong, brilliant and ambitious but also very confused.  He is an amnesiac. He believes that Aléxandros Argead is his name because it is inscribed on a rectangular metallic tag with rounded edges he wore on a ball chain around his neck but he does not know where he was born or where he was raised, although his dreams seem to provide impossible hints.  His oldest memories, all too recent, involve waking, somewhat injured, on a battlefield near the city of Al-Hillah in Iraq along the Euphrates River, approximately 85 kilometers (53 miles) south of Baghdad; the sole survivor of some sort of major military conflict.  He was the only survivor and thus had no one he could ask what it was about or on whose side he fought.  But he was somehow certain that the “Americans” were not his friends.  Fortunately, a certain amount of currency was strewn nearby and he’d collected it, all of it, somehow aware that it would prove important. 

It does.  Eventually.  Although perhaps eventually has not yet made its appearance.

So, what does he look like?  Well, his body is athletic and muscular and he is a little less than five feet seven inches tall, with what had once been a fair skin bronzed by prolonged exposure to the outdoors into a naturally ruddy, sun-flushed complexion.  His hair is thick, golden and swept upward from his forehead in a distinct, lion-like “anastole” style. His face has sharp features, including a prominent forehead, a short, strong chin, and a slight, characteristic tilt of his head toward his left shoulder. Most striking are his intense, deep-set eyes that carry a sharp, melting gaze which creates an impression of vulnerability but also, of commanding power.

He is, unbeknownst to himself, of a line founded over twenty seven centuries ago, one that over twenty-three centuries ago was thought to have become extinct, one founded by a certain Perdiccas from the ancient Greek city-state of Argos who was, in turn, descended from a certain Temenus, purportedly a great-great-grandson of Heracles.  Temenus was at one time king in Argos.  Perdicass, however, along with his two older brothers, Gauanes and Aeropus, had a fate further to the north in what was to become known as Macedon.  Of course, being aware of nothing, Aléxandros Argead knew nothing concerning the foregoing, and perhaps he never had.  Perhaps he never would.  According to history, every member of the Argead family had been assassinated by a certain Cassander, son of Antipater, millennia ago.  Seemingly as is frequently the case, historians were mistaken.

So, for a bit of context, context for us if not for Aléxandros Argead. 

According to the earliest and most widely accepted historical traditions from Herodotus and Thucydides, Perdiccas was the founder of what came to be known as the Argead dynasty, hence Aléxandros’ surname.  Purportedly, at least according to legends of which Aléxandros was unaware, perhaps because of his apparent amnesia, or perhaps because his family history had been lost in the mists of time as his ancestors first escaped from their jealous enemies, enemies who had purportedly been faithful followers, and then hid, hid for millennia, but sought to keep their family history somehow alive while hidden, although after several centuries, history had been conflated with myth, and the term myth attributed to actual facts.

Perdiccas had eventually attained power to the north of Argos, to the north of Greece, through a legendary journey of exile, labor, and a prophetic omen as famously recorded in Herodotus’s The Histories.  According to what passed for history at the time (and may or may not have been accurate), Perdiccas and his two older brothers, Gauanes and Aeropus, were born and, for a time, lived in the Greek city-state of Argos, claiming descent, however, from the mythical hero Heracles who was born in Thebes.  But that was not the most unlikely of the many legends that surround this particular family.

For reasons lost to history, Perdiccas and his brothers, Gauanes and Aeropus, were exiled from Argos, most probably for reasons having to do with disputes concerning royal succession.  After being exiled from Argos, the brothers traveled through Illyria to the Macedonian town of Lebaea.  There, for a time, they worked as shepherds of sorts for a local king.  Not a major king by any means.  In those days, almost any independent ruler of a territory, even one the size of a town, tended to proclaim himself a pasireu (petty king).  In this case, it involved a pasireu rather than a basileus (more substantial king).  Indeed, the king’s own wife baked bread for the royal household including its servants and those who herded livestock.  According to an unlikely legend, whenever the queen baked bread, the loaf meant for Perdiccas miraculously doubled in size.  Disturbed by the consistent anomaly the queen discussed it with her husband who viewed it as an omen from the gods that Perdiccas was destined for greatness. Fearing this sign, the king ordered the brothers to leave his territory immediately.  The brothers agreed, after all, their stay in Lebaea was not meant to be permanent, they were of royal stock and probably meant to somehow or other reclaim their birthrights, so they readily agreed to leave, asking only for the wages they had earned.  The king however, for some stupid reason, reneged on his obligation to pay them, supposedly mockingly pointed to a patch of sunlight shining through the chimney and told them that was all they would get. Surprising the king and his wife as well as his brothers, Perdiccas accepted the offer, symbolically scraping the sunlight into the fold of his garment. Abruptly, shortly after the brothers departure, the king, not a total idiot, realized that the acceptance by Perdiccass and his symbolic act of gathering up the sunlight symbolized claiming the land itself and he sent riders to kill them.  However, again according to improbable legend, a sacred river flooded to protect the brothers, allowing them to escape.  Perdiccas and his brothers settled near Mount Vermion in a fertile area known as the Gardens of Midas. Using this location as a secure base, Perdiccas’ charisma and legendary heritage allowed him to unite the local Macedonian tribes and he led his new people eastward into the plains, conquering the surrounding territories and eventually founding the city of Aigai (modern Vergina in the Northern Greek region still known as Macedonia), which became the first royal capital of the Argead kingdom. 

Because of their origin in Argos, the lineage founded by the brothers became known as the Argead dynasty and it ruled the ancient kingdom of Macedon from its founding around 700 before the Common Era until 310 of that epoch.  While the house ruled Macedonia for seven centuries, it was only towards the end under Phílippos II and his second son, Aléxandros III, that the Argead dynasty rose from a peripheral northern kingdom to a global superpower unifying Greece, dismantling the Persian Empire and extending as far as Western India. The dynasty seemingly ended shortly after Aléxandros III’s’ death as a result of the power struggles of his generals (the Diadochi), culminating in the murder of his young son, Aléxandros IV, in 310 BC.  However, ignored by history was the reality that Aléxandros III was not the only heir of the Argeads, nor, perhaps, was Aléxandros IV the only surviving offspring of Aléxandros III.

Which brings us to Aléxandros Argead, the one who thought that he knew his name but little else.  Concerning his personal past or his likely future neither we nor he know anything and, of his present, only the foregoing (as to which he was, at the moment, unaware).  But the world needs heroes today, today perhaps more than ever, and perhaps his appearance near the city of Al-Hillah is, like so many other things in his family’s past, an omen.

From deep within the deepest pit in Hades, a furious Cassander looks on.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.