Mills said she had run out of money, but this may not have been the whole reason she withdrew from the race. She has been trailing Platner in the primary polling, sometimes by 30 points or more. So she could have decided to avoid ending her political career with a crushing primary defeat, instead choosing to make her exit without that stain on her legacy. But whatever her reasons, it now appears almost certain that Platner will take on sitting Senator Susan Collins in November.

Could we be nearing an actual exit ramp in the war of choice Donald Trump started with Iran? It's hard to tell -- these diplomatic negotiations often look completely unproductive right up until both sides agree to some sort of deal, so anything's really possible. This weekend didn't see any tangible progress, as Iran refused to meet face-to-face with the U.S. team in Pakistan, which forced Trump to announce (for the second time in a week) that the U.S. team wouldn't even be flying out to Pakistan at all. This was a pretty big snub by the Iranians, but then again who knows if they had actually agreed to sit down and talk this weekend in the first place? With the best source of information being Donald Trump, you always have to wonder how much is the truth and how much of it is lies and bluster.

Trump is attempting to define the war the way he usually does, by gaslighting and openly lying, in the hopes that everyone will start believing his lies rather than paying attention to reality. Or just by constantly contradicting himself, showing he doesn't really have a clue as to what is really going on. The Iranians, however, aren't playing his game. They responded with a withering: "The President of the United States made seven claims in one hour, all seven of which were false. They did not win the war with these lies, and they will certainly not get anywhere in negotiations either." Iran then promptly closed the Strait back down and attacked two ships (to show they were serious). So the U.S. attacked an Iranian ship and seized it by force. The Iranians responded by seizing a few ships by force in the Strait.

The best commentary we heard about all of this came from Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Democrat from California. As an aside in an eye-opening comment she made to a reporter (more on this in a bit), she called Trump, "this dude, Dr. Jesus...." Which is where our headline today came from (to give credit where it is due).

This week also saw the president of the United States threatening to commit war crimes in his war of choice with Iran. Even this wasn't enough for him, as he quickly moved on to threatening crimes against humanity. Thankfully, neither actually happened, because he chickened out at the last minute.

Instead, we'd like to focus today on some good news for Democrats. Elections last night in Georgia and Wisconsin brought further proof that the Democratic Party has the wind at their backs heading into this year's midterm election season. As Politico put it, "Democrats just had one of their best election nights since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. Again." That pretty much sums up the shift that has been happening ever since Trump took office.

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!"

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 is admittedly a facetious way to put things, but the phrase has been popping into my mind over the past month. Democrats in Congress have partially shut the federal government down, but the issue has all but disappeared from the news, even though the shutdown is now about to enter its second month. There has been no progress whatsoever on any sort of deal or compromise, but the whole thing isn't being treated as any sort of crisis or emergency at all.

Sorry, but we just couldn't resist. Trump was finally forced to fire one of the members of his cabinet, and it just couldn't have happened to a nicer person. Which is also pure snark, of course, because Noem was one of the most odious members of Team Trump by far (which is saying a lot). She even got yelled at this week by a fellow Republican for the heartlessness of the story she included in the book she wrote about herself, where she took the family dog out to the gravel pit and shot him dead. For good measure, she also shot a goat. Because of "leadership," or something.

I chose this theme because it seems it's been a week of politicians being urged to drop out of their respective races. So far, few have, but the entreaties will likely continue and continue to grow in urgency. But dropping out is indeed hard to do for any politician, since entering into politics as a candidate almost requires you to have an outsized opinion of: yourself, your importance to your party, and your ability to influence the direction of the country. Donald Trump has the biggest ego of any politician I've ever seen, but there are plenty of others whose egos are pretty outsized as well. It's the nature of the business, really.

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:

This weekend's special elections both happened in Texas: one for a vacant seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and one for a state senate seat. Democrats romped to victory in both.

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.

But there's one grumpy oldster we can't just ignore in this fashion, because he is President Cranky Grandpa and his ranting and raving actually has consequences. Thankfully though, his latest grumpiness is going to help Democrats make their case in next year's midterm elections.

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].

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?

The idea was first proposed by the Democrats, who are considering holding a convention to showcase their up-and-coming prospective candidates and to whip up their base in an effort to motivate them to turn out to vote. I was actually surprised to read (in Axios, who got the scoop on this story) that it wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened. As they report:

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.

President Donald Trump, in his second term, decided to liberate himself from having any adults in the room when he made important decisions. Instead, he surrounded himself with ass-kissers and other assorted sycophants, all of whom tell him he is great no matter what crazy notion pops into his head.

This is the result. Yesterday, the Dow Jones average lost 1,600 points. Today it lost another 2,200 points. Trump has singlehandedly crashed the economy -- and we're only two days in.