The Matterboard is our weekly assessment of what’s worth your attention and what isn’t. Here’s last week’s edition, here’s an overview of the project, and here’s the full archive.
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PAY ATTENTION ⚠️
A possible Blue Wave tops The Matterboard this week, for obvious reasons. Democrats seem very likely to retake control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections. Polls and prediction markets think Dems have a solid chance of taking the Senate, but we’re calling that a toss-up. Once the voting ends on November 3, the biggest question will be what sort of shenanigans President Trump tries to pull to block any outcome he doesn’t like. We think it will be ugly, but courts will stop virtually all Trump efforts to rig the outcome, and the true winners will take their seats in January. We’ve already covered the issues we think are most important to follow, so instead of repeating ourselves we’ll just post those links here:
12 Trump election swindles to watch for
5 Kalshi bets on the midterm elections
7 things to watch after Election Day
The Trump economic bust in 10 charts
Iran opening? The Trump administration has supposedly tried to restart peace talks with Iran. One day, they’re planning a huge attack, the next day, a deal is in the air. We think the attack bluster of the last couple weeks is a ruse and there won’t be a major escalation after the midterms. The way out is to maintain the naval blockade of Iran as energy flows from the region get back to normal. But of course the erratic Trump could do anything.
Misleading Ukraine ceasefire. There’s a localized ceasefire in the wrecked Ukrainian town of Oleshky, occupied by Russia for nearly five years. The locals who remain in this hellscape desperately need supplies and other help, but the arrangement still feels like a sham. It was supposedly brokered by First Lady Melania Trump, and the right-wing US network Newsmax said it somehow received exclusive rights to accompany a group of Russian and Ukrainian representatives entering the enclave. In The Atlantic, journalist Zarina Zabrisky described the barbarity Russian forces have demonstrated in Oleshky and explained how Russia, abetted by the Trump administration, would use the ceasefire to mount a propaganda operation covering up its atrocities. That’s what seems to be going on.
MIGHT GET SPICY 🤔
Trump’s bogus prosecutions keep flopping, yet they keep coming. A grand jury recently declined to indict Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump aide who testified before Congress in 2022 about Trump’s efforts to direct the 1/6/2021 riots at the US Capitol. Trump sicced the Justice Dept. on her but they couldn’t come up with anything. Meanwhile, Trump’s hatchet men at the DOJ have now charged former FBI Director James Comey with crimes for the third time. The first set of charges fell apart in 2020. The second set was the ridiculous “86 47” seashell case, which is still pending. The third set of charges stems from a supposed leak to the New York Times 10 years ago.
Comey will survive all these ham-fisted personal vendettas against him, but we keep them high on the Matterboard because they are gross abuses of power by Trump, Attorney General Todd Blanche and the prosecutors running Trump’s errands.
Republican dirty tricks are likely to multiply once the midterm election voting is over and Trump’s party has to deal with a walloping. We recently posted 12 things to watch for. We’ll publish updates as necessary.
The Brazilian presidential election turned out to be a surprise, with the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, beating the Trump favorite, Flávio Bolsonaro. Trump took it personally, because Bolsonaro is a crony who was supposed to Trumpify Latin America’s most populous country. But Brazilians didn’t seem to want that. After the election, the government there told Bolsonaro to surrender his passport, while authorities investigate his role in a money-laundering scheme. Instead, he and his family flew to Miami, where the Trump State Dept. welcomed the migrants with open arms. Bolsonaro says he’ll now lead an opposition movement in exile. Wow, what guts.