Speaking of things quickly rocketing upward, this week the average national price of a gallon of gasoline blew through the "four bucks a gallon" milestone and hit $4.10 today. To which we can only say: "Ouch!"

The group, as the name implies, is secret. It is an artists' collective but nobody knows who is behind it or a member of it. They use intermediaries to file for National Park permits to display art installations on the National Mall without fanfare, and then they just silently appear. And they've outdone themselves, once again.

Of course, this has always been Donald Trump's modus operandi to some extent, but it is much more apparent now that we're in what seems to be a prolonged war. Trump is now attempting a feint in this war, but nobody's really sure what is the feint and what will become reality in the next few weeks. Trump himself probably doesn't know, at this point.

That sounds cynical, but it's not even the most cynical take on things. Hardcore cynics point out that Trump seems to launch his military attacks whenever the Epstein files begin to get some traction in the news again. We're not sure if we totally buy into that thinking, but it is worth considering, seeing how Trump does almost everything for the stupidest of reasons.

Was that too snarky? Sorry, let me start over.... Democrats faced with the problem of how to counter Trump's speech Tuesday night came up with several ideas for the best way to do so. Should they just not attend? Should they protest in the chamber itself, either visually (with signs and buttons), audibly (by shouting at Trump), or by silently standing up and walking out at some point? Should they hold an alternative event (or two) to counterprogram what was going on inside the Capitol? Should they just hold a snowball fight on the National Mall? Well, they decided "all of the above!" (except for that last one -- there was no snowball fight, I just had to throw that in there for amusement).

When Roman emperors ran out of ideas, they promised bread and circuses. Trump's speech was full of circuses, including a lengthy celebration of the U.S. men's Olympic hockey team. But he's no Roman emperor: He made a point of reminding the American people that his administration is providing a lot less food to the poor (having "lifted" 2.4 million people off food stamps).

[Just to give credit where it is due....]

Sadly, that's not even overstating what Trump will likely say. If anything, it might actually understate it. Today, Trump gave us all a little teaser, which was exactly what you'd expect from him:

Looking back, the most notable thing about Trump's first year back was how he has thrown himself fully into the Silicon Valley maxim to "move fast and break things." Trump has indeed moved fast, and he has indeed broken many things -- some of which will take a very long time to put back together and some of which may just stay broken forever.

(Sigh.)

The defining feature of this past year has been -- just like it was in his first term -- the continuing cycle of being so aghast at Trump's planet-sized ego, flailing insecurities, and toddler-grade tantrums and thinking to oneself: "Well, it surely can't get any worse than this!" -- only to wake up the next morning, read the headlines, and find out that yep, it sure can get worse, in ways you would never have imagined in a million years, pre-Trump.

This article is mind-bendingly long enough, so we're not going to bother with any other introductory words at all. Instead, let's just get right to the awards, shall we?

Also as always, it is long. Really, really, insanely long. You have been warned!

And also as always, we'll be back again next Friday for [Part 2].

Congress can indeed move quickly, when they want to. The House speaker could have delayed the vote until just before or after Thanksgiving, but instead he scheduled it for today. After this weekend's about-face from Donald Trump, almost the entire Republican Party (with only one vote against in either chamber) passed the bill through both houses in one day.

That's a tough thing for me to say, less than a month from Election Day and with early voting having already begun. But I feel it is necessary at this point, even if it means the Republican candidate would win.

Our subtitle this week is meant to honor the passing of Rick Davies, one of the founding members of the musical group Supertramp, who passed away less than two weeks ago. In one of their biggest hits ("The Logical Song"), one lyric seems to sum up where we now stand as a nation:

Doing so is pretty easy, since you can connect all sorts of dots to it: A soft jobs market. Inflation rising. Hamburger prices up. Electricity prices way up. Trump's tariff war, which has created a "Trump tax" on a whole bunch of products. Trump took hold of an economy that had achieved a "soft landing," and now he's driving us all right into a ditch. Everything he does seems to make things worse. See how easy that is to do?

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.

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.

Senator Lisa Murkowski was convinced at the last minute to become the deciding vote for the Republican budget by the inclusion of a big tax break for (are you sitting down?) whaling captains. No, really -- whaling captains. As I said, the jokes really just write themselves on this one. Democrats instantly came up with two catchy names for all the Alaska-specific pork Murkowski extracted from her fellow Republicans: the Kodiak Kickback, or the Polar Payoff.

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."

Well, no. That's not actually how it happened. But it's not that far from the reality, sad to say.

This strategy worked wonders for China, as last weekend Trump dropped his tariff levels against the country by a whopping 115 percentage points. This was precisely what China had been demanding he do before any trade negotiations could even begin. All they had to do was wait.

But getting back to the actual scandal (rather than my expectations of a scandal), Pete Hegseth seems once again to be teetering on the edge of becoming more trouble than he is worth to the White House. What's more, this seems to be the result of a power struggle not between Hegseth's own personal minions and the entrenched bureaucracy at the Pentagon (as might have been expected), but it seems to be coming entirely from within Hegseth's inner circle itself. Which is also kind of surprising.

Sorry if that's a bit disheartening, but at this point it's hard to find much in the way of optimism in the political world. And we're certainly not alone in this view.

Trump invoked a law from the 1700s this week which would allow him personally to determine who gets deported. No due process, no hearing before a judge -- none of that. Just Trump deciding: "I don't like this guy, let's kick him out." The Alien Enemies Act is only supposed to apply when the United States is at war with another nation, and has only been used three times -- the most recent being the shameful internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. But as far as Trump is concerned, it doesn't matter than we aren't at war, he just doesn't want to deal with the courts at all.

Nitpickery aside, let's do a quick review of how things went last night, shall we?

I start with such snark because it seems entirely appropriate. But this is rather big news, as what it truly means is that the Republican House cats have now (for once) been successfully herded. This really is a big deal, since it hasn't happened much at all in the past decade or so.

The way things usually go in the GOP House is that they attempt to pass a bill (usually a budget, since that's about all they're capable of paying attention to) but their slim majority in the chamber means that their speaker cannot convince enough of them to vote for it, and so it dies. This usually leads to negotiations with Democrats and kicking the can down the road once again (it can also lead to a new Republican speaker, as we've seen before).

That, of course, is a daunting prospect, but we can at least open with some good news this week: Trump is already wearing out his welcome with the public. The presidential "honeymoon" period is apparently over (almost before it began). Trump started off his second term with historically dismal ratings, although they did best one previous president -- himself, in his first term. His job approval numbers were actually at 50 percent or just above when he was sworn in this time around (which, as mentioned, every other modern president has beaten), so he could at least claim a majority of the public was behind him. Not any more.

Before Donald Trump became president again, both he and his MAGA choir spent a lot of time decrying "censorship" and wailing about their "free speech" being somehow suppressed. This was largely due to social media sites policing their allowable content, and occasionally removing objectionable or flat-out false posts and even kicking people off their platforms.

This time around, President Trump is pre-emptively taking a wrecking ball to the federal government's medical establishment, in what can only be called a war on medical science. It was telling, during the early months of the COVID crisis, that Trump kept complaining that we were doing "too much testing." The numbers of people infected and hospitalized and dying were shooting up dramatically, after Trump had promised the country that they wouldn't. The solution, as far as Trump was concerned, was to just stop testing everyone. That way, there wouldn't be any big numbers to alarm everyone. Hey presto! Problem solved!

Which is why we sincerely hope that Donald Trump is asked about it as often as possible -- say, once a week, at a minimum -- now that he is president again. Because for all his promises, eggflation is going to be a very tough problem for him to solve.

Republicans now refuse to condemn pretty much anything that any other Republican does -- no matter how amoral -- starting at the top with President Donald Trump. The GOP has claimed for decades that they are the "law and order" party, but that all goes out the window when Trump pardons hundreds of people who assaulted police officers. Supporting cops is less important than supporting a fellow Republican. Morals are conveniently set aside whenever necessary.

As always, it's a marathon. It's really, really long. Don't say you weren't warned! And since it is so long, that's all the introduction we're going to bother with.

Ready?... everyone buckle up... here we go....

Speaking of rotting brains (a wonderful segue if there ever was one), Donald Trump continues to fill out his administration, nominating more and more sexual predators, total incompetents, billionaires, and complete clowns (those categories are not mutually exclusive, we should point out). A "team of ribalds" for the ages, it seems.

Sorry, but it's almost impossible not to treat the whole sordid story as a joke. Gaetz was a completely laughable candidate from the start, so it's hard not to have a few final laughs as he exits. After all, the nomination of Gaetz didn't even last a full Scaramucci!

Kidding aside, I do have to wonder whether this was the plan all along. From the start, there was speculation that this was all very conveniently timed to allow Gaetz to escape what is reportedly a very damning report from the House Ethics Committee being made public. If Gaetz hadn't been nominated, this report likely would have been released last Friday. Gaetz reportedly has plans to run for Florida governor in 2026, and it would be easier for him to do so if the report stays buried.

But among all the frenzy surrounding who called whom "garbage" this week, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered her closing pitch to voters from the same spot Donald Trump incited a mob to go attack the United States Capitol four years ago. From the Ellipse, with the White House in the background, Harris spoke of the differences between her and Trump, and made her closing argument for why Americans should vote for her rather than him.

Ah... those were the days, eh?

The first was the one-and-only vice-presidential debate, held on CBS this Tuesday. Republican JD Vance faced off with Democrat Tim Walz, and it was watched by 43 million people as it aired. The second was the public release of a document prosecutor Jack Smith had previously filed with the court in Donald Trump's January 6th case. It laid out Smith's basic case, in great detail (165 pages' worth).

In a normal campaign season, either one of these would have been impactful, perhaps shifting the polling in significant ways. But in our hunkered-down tribalistic politics, the needle barely quivered. Maybe we're all getting a bit jaded?

There were two other rather large events that could affect politics this week: the massive damage Hurricane Helene did -- especially in the Appalachian Mountain region -- and an East Coast dockworkers' strike. The first shouldn't really have been political, and the second was over almost before anyone was aware it was happening.