Just before the 20th anniversary of the impact of Hurricane Katrina, a group of current and former Federal Emergency Management Agency employees have signed an extraordinary letter warning America that we could be headed for a similar disaster. Not the hurricane itself, but the man-made disaster which followed, as George W. Bush's FEMA proved to be completely incompetent at disaster recovery in a big way. They even called their letter the "Katrina Declaration," to amplify their warning.

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After Donald Trump held two back-to-back summits, in an effort to get a quick ceasefire and peace agreement in Ukraine, not much of anything has actually changed. Unless you count the rest of the world either laughing at America's president or gingerly trying to not bruise his all-too-fragile ego. Both of those things have increased, sadly.

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Two stories dominated the political headlines this week: Texas Democrats fleeing the state to halt the Republican-dominated legislature's efforts to redraw their U.S. House district lines to hand Republicans five more safe seats, and Donald Trump letting incredibly high tariffs begin against over 90 countries worldwide.

We'll get to them in a moment, but what's more interesting is the dog that didn't bark today. Russia was supposed to have a "10-day deadline" to end its invasion of Ukraine, and steep tariffs were supposed to be slapped on them if Vladimir Putin hadn't manage to do so by today. However, nary a headline is talking about the tariffs that were supposed to appear, because once again Putin played Trump like a violin.

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Today's job numbers are bad. There's no getting around it. So Donald Trump reacted to this bad news by immediately firing the messenger. Which is really bad. "Banana republic" bad, in fact. We should all expect Trump to name the next head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics who will then dutifully report next month that "in August, America added eight million new jobs, thanks to our Dear Leader's brilliance." Because that is obviously what Trump wants to hear, instead of any proof that the fantasy world he inhabits in his head is rosier than the actual reality in which the rest of us live.

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We have to begin today with an absurdity. It's been that kind of week....

This week, Donald Trump proved once again -- beyond the shadow of a doubt -- that his understanding of basic mathematics would be considered sub-par in any random fifth-grade math class in this country. Most 10-year-olds could spot Trump's glaring error, to put that another way.

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Once again, this week was consumed by an out-of-control political fire that is engulfing Donald Trump, his attorney general, the F.B.I., and all of Trump's fellow Republicans in Congress. They built a political Ponzi scheme out of the Epstein files, and it has now completely collapsed around them.

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Remember when Donald Trump pitched a hissy fit because he didn't like the way a portrait of him looked, in Colorado? He actually made them take it down and create a new painting. So we're wondering if someone's about to get fired in the White House, after they used an official White House social media account to post an image of Trump as (are you sitting down?) Superman. Now, the idea of "Trump as Superman" isn't all that shocking, since both he and all his acolytes operate at the mental level of a spoiled elementary-school-aged narcissist, but what is truly hilarious is the image they used -- because they didn't bother to edit out his gut. It's just sticking right out there for all to see. Usually when Trump has these he-man fantasies he uses fake images with lots of muscles and a ripped body, but this time someone forgot to tell the A.I. program to slim him down. So, as we said, we're anticipating someone in the White House communications department getting unceremoniously booted from their job real soon now. It's kind of surprising they'd even use the Superman theme in the first place, since the MAGA folks all hit the ceiling when the director of the new Superman movie pointed out the fact that Superman is actually (gasp!) an immigrant. And it is highly doubtful that the Kent parents ever bothered to inform the federal government of the fact, so that would actually make Superman an undocumented immigrant. Oh, the horror!

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It's not exactly front-and-center in the news, but Republicans have entered a budgetary crunch time in a big way. The outcome is going to be extremely significant to hundreds of millions of Americans, but reporting on it is time-consuming and detail-oriented, so it's a lot easier to just chase whatever shiny object Donald Trump trots out for the press instead.

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Maybe Donald Trump missed his calling in life. Maybe he secretly dreams of running a car dealership lot. Previously, he turned the White House lawn into a showroom for Teslas (as he showed his tenuous grasp of the English language, saying: "It's all computer!"). Now he has erected two very tall flagpoles on the White House grounds, complete with the sort of giant flag one usually sees from a highway to signify an auto dealership. Which means our title this week pretty much had to be based on the maxim: "Let's run it up the flagpole and see who salutes!"

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It has been a week of dangerous precedents being set -- and it's not over yet.

One precedent that didn't get much media attention (but which is truly disturbing) was Donald Trump giving a nakedly political speech to American soldiers in uniform, where he pre-screened the crowd for both looks and ideology. One memo sent out before Trump arrived specified: "No fat soldiers." Another stated: "if soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don't want to be in the audience, then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out."

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