SHIFT RIGHT: In a revival of Brazil’s right wing, Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, the son of the country’s imprisoned former President Jair Bolsonaro, finished well in the first round of elections and looks like he might unseat the leftist incumbent, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

  As many as nine million Brazilians who voted for other right wingers are expected to shift to Bolsonaro in the October 25^th final. 

  Bolsonaro’s father, Jair, was imprisoned after being convicted of trying to overturn the election that put Lula in office. President Donald Trump tried unsuccessfully to intervene on his behalf.

— INFINITE SCROLL: As if this might have come as a surprise to anyone, former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is cashing in to deliver commentary and analysis on Fox News. She was a ferocious defender of the president in the briefing room.

  Fox has become a revolving door between the television screen and the Trump administration. Leavitt starts on November 1^st.

— Facing an uproar over his government-funded self-promotional advertisements, President Trump said his super PAC, MAGA Inc., will foot the $20 million bill. Trump blamed the Radical Left and said paying with government money “is a rather standard thing to do.”  

VACCINE PROOF: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, his state’s Republican nominee for US Senator, is at the helm of an investigation based on his belief that doctors, drug companies, and insurers have conspired to push parents into vaccinating children.

  The NY Times reports as one example on a pediatrician who was asked to provide all of her vaccine purchase records going back 10 years. That doctor also received a letter from the state’s Consumer Protection Division saying, “The division believes that you are in possession, custody or control” of material, “involving potential misleading or deceptive acts regarding incentives associated with the administration of childhood vaccines.” 

  Paxton has fallen in with Health Secretary Robet F. Kennedy Jr., who has been on a 20-year campaign questioning the safety and efficacy of childhood vaccines. Announcing his investigation nine months ago, Paxton said, “I will ensure that Big Pharma and Big Insurance don’t bribe medical providers to pressure parents to jab their kids with vaccines they feel aren’t safe or necessary.” 

  Not directly related, but while we’re on the subject of Paxton, he trails Democrat James Talarico by six points in the polls.

INFINITE SCROLL:

— The White House excluded the news outlet Politico from the press pool, leaving it, like CNN, unable to take part in the coverage rotation of President Trump.

  Trump’s banning of Politico, CNN, and MS NOW from even entering the White House was reversed in court he’s treating the press pool as if it is not covered by that order.

— President Donald Trump approved execution by firing squad for Nidal Malik Hasan, a former US Army psychiatrist who committed a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, killing 13 people and wounding 32. It would be the military’s first execution by firing squad since 1945.

THE OBIT PAGE: Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, the longest serving Republican speaker who faded into obscurity after being criminally convicted of sexually abusing high school students as a wrestling coach earlier in his life, died in Illinois at age 84.

  Hastert had risen from relative political anonymity in 1998 as others fell to scandal. He was speaker until Republicans lost the majority in 2006. In what would be unheard of today, he forced through an expansion of Medicare to cover prescription drug costs. 

  Hastert left Congress in November 2007, and his troubles began after years of serving as a highly-paid lobbyist. He had been an Illinois high school teacher and coach from 1965 to 1981. In 2015 he was indicted on banking charges for having made millions of dollars in secret payments to cover up sexual misconduct with a male student. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

— Disgraced former television evangelist Jim Bakker, who fell in a 1980s sex scandal and went to prison for five years for violating federal laws regarding his mix of faith and finance, died yesterday at age 86.

  In the 1970s and ’80s, Bakker and his brassy first wife, Tammy Faye, rose to fame and fortune preaching the gospel of prosperity, telling their followers that faith would reap them riches.  They once had 13 million viewers a day and reaped $129 million a year.

  Tammy Faye was known for her Betty Boop eyelashes and panted-on brows.

  Bakker’s house of mammon fell in 1980 when it was revealed that he’s had sex with a 21-year-old secretary in his Assemblies of God ministry. The woman, Jessica Hahn, became a name synonymous with scandal.

  Bakker dipped into the ministry till to buy Hahn’s silence with a $265,000 payment and that’s what landed him on the wrong side of the law. The Rev. Jerry Falwell, who took over Bakker’s Praise The Lord ministry, called Bakker “the greatest scab and a cancer on the face of Christianity in 2,000 years of church history.”

THE SPIN RACK: In the midst of the university’s gang-rape scandal, a building at Cornell University was painted with the graffiti “Smash the patriarchy” and “At Cornell rapists are protected protesters are expelled.” More than 1,000 furious protesters gathered yesterday on the Cornell campus. — The US withdrew 12 B-1 bombers from their base in southern England because the US and Britain  believed there was a credible threat of an Iranian drone attack. — FBI Director Kash Patel is calling in the law. The 46-year-old announced his engagement to his girlfriend, 26-year-old country music singer Alexis Wilkins, 27.  

BELOW THE FOLD: Philadelphia held its first parallel parking competition with three rounds in the categories of “One Shot,” “Tight Squeeze,” and “Under Duress.” The winner was awarded a chunk of street curb and $76, the cost of a Philadelphia parking ticket.

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