5️⃣ Melania's ceasefire covers one town
The White House says the first lady got Russia and Ukraine to stop shooting at Oleshky, a town of about 2,000 in occupied Kherson, for 30 hours so far and six days of food and evacuation. Dean's account is that Pope Leo opened the channel to Putin three months ago and secured the truce from a hospital bed, and that the Vatican's thanks never named Melania Trump. The 21,640 Ukrainian children Russia has taken are still in Russia.
4️⃣ Flávio Bolsonaro lands in Miami, and Brazil's court names Rockbridge
Flávio Bolsonaro crossed into Argentina at 10:50 Tuesday night, 11 hours past the Supreme Court's passport deadline, and stepped off a Gulfstream in Miami on Wednesday morning on visas Trump approved. He lost Sunday's runoff by 4.4 million votes and faces two money-laundering cases at home. The same day, Justice Flávio Dino ordered the Federal Police to investigate whether a foreign donor network paid for his campaign and whether Meta and Twitter were tilted for him. The network is Rockbridge, founded in 2019 by JD Vance and Chris Buskirk, backed by Peter Thiel and Rebekah Mercer, with a Rockbridge Brazil LLC registered in Wyoming, where owners stay secret. Dean's reading: Brazil cannot touch a sitting vice president, and American law can.
3️⃣ A grand jury says no to Todd Blanche
A D.C. grand jury refused to indict Cassidy Hutchinson, the Jan. 6 witness, for telling the truth about that day. It follows a third case against James Comey, built on a 2016 leak, after the first two were thrown out. Dean's word for it is the revenge tour: file every charge you can before the midterms, through prosecutors a judge ruled this week are serving unlawfully.
2️⃣ Patriots move, and the Gulf is told to brace
The Pentagon is moving a Patriot battery to the Middle East and the Gulf has been told to brace for "a short yet intensive military offensive" after Nov. 3. Trump, in Texas: "You'll see Iran in a couple of weeks." The Strait of Hormuz is still closed, with tankers waiting in it, under a president who says he owns it. Eisenkot told the army not to follow a caretaker prime minister into a war for his own survival.
1️⃣ Eight seats short, Likud calls the vote stolen
At 10 p.m. the exit polls had Gadi Eisenkot's bloc ahead. By 2 a.m. Netanyahu was on the Likud stage saying the revised numbers made him the largest party and entitled him to govern. Today Likud posted that the election "was stolen by Arab parties that support terrorism" and demanded the police and the Shin Bet investigate. Arab citizens of Israel, 1.3 million of them, voted in record numbers. Lev Parnas told Narativ on election night that the White House was unhappy with the first polls and would try to make changes; what changed between 10 and 2, no one has said. Eisenkot has a path to a minority government with Arab support, and that is what the people voted for.
Bonus: Dean's read
Trump is quietly surrendering to Canada on tariffs. Lubbock was a mental health episode. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra told Canadian businessmen that Canada takes the blame if Trump loses. All at deanblundell.substack.com; prices rise Oct. 31.
