Human beings set a record this week for reaching the farthest distance away from Earth ever, as Artemis II looped around the far side of the moon. Hopefully the astronauts will safely splash down in the Pacific Ocean later today. The whole space mission was a bright spot in the news this week -- in a week that sorely needed some positivity.

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.

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The citizens of the Republic of Ireland have a saying about what happened to them after their successful revolution over 100 years ago. They say: "We won the war, but we lost the peace." Without getting into the details too much, what they mean by this is that after they had won their war of independence against Great Britain, they were still forced to relinquish six of Ireland's counties (which would remain under British control). This situation still exists -- it is how the country of Northern Ireland was created.

It's pretty obvious why I was reminded of this saying this week. The current situation is about as murky as can be, but it does seem as though Donald Trump could be considering a similar outcome. After militarily winning the war with Iran, the U.S. might just wind up "losing the peace," at least to some extent or another.

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Donald Trump seems to be determined to break as many campaign promises as he possibly can, in the shortest period of time possible. Conveniently (for Democrats), he is doing all of this right at the start of the midterm campaign season, as the first states conduct their primaries. This seems like a rather spectacular way to commit political suicide, but then again Trump is a master at avoiding consequences, so who really knows how it will all play out?

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There's a certain type of young child who gets that phrase written about him on his early school report cards. The type who has to be the center of everything, all the time. Who always has to be the one who picks what games the other children play. Who, when losing one of those games, angrily throws the game board to the floor, scattering all the pieces, while yelling: "You cheated!" Who insults the other children and mocks them mercilessly for any perceived shortcomings. Who has an incredibly thin skin when mocked himself. Who never takes the blame for anything or admits any wrongdoing. Who throws epic tantrums at the drop of a hat. In a word: a bully.

Donald Trump, our toddler-in-chief, is in the midst of one of those incandescent tantrums. His war isn't going anywhere near as well as he thought it would, and the fact that Iran has effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz is making him apoplectic with rage. He is now demanding that other countries of the world save him from his missteps, by sending their warships into the Strait to escort oil tankers and other ships. But he's finding that the rest of the world is not exactly leaping to help him out, which shouldn't come of much of a surprise to anyone, considering how he has treated all of America's closest allies up to this point.

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The Democratic response to Donald Trump's marathon State Of The Union speech was fractured, but not quite as fractured as last year. Perhaps that is faint praise, but we are speaking about Democrats here....

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).

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Perhaps it was because the week ends on Friday the 13th, but whatever the real reason was, Donald Trump didn't have a great week this week. Which, of course, is good news for everyone else! There was actually a lot of good news in the political world this week -- so much that we're not even going to bother with the other news that wasn't so good.

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The House of Representatives -- against the wishes of the Republican speaker -- seems poised to vote today on a direct rebuke to Donald Trump's willy-nilly tariff regime. This is interesting news at the start of a midterm election year, but it probably won't actually serve to rein in Trump. Even so, it would be only the second time the Republican Congress expressly pushed back on Trump for any reason at all, so it is at least noteworthy.

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Today marks the end of an era. The geopolitical legacy of the 1980s has now disappeared. Today the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between Russia and the United States expires, with nothing left in its place. Some are predicting that this could set off another nuclear arms race that could see all the nuclear powers beefing up their nuclear arsenal, while other countries decide it is time for them to join the nuclear club.

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Welcome back to the ongoing saga of "The Arsonist Fireman." In this week's episode, our protagonist lights a fire which could burn down the entire Western world -- starting with its military alliance -- before grabbing a fire extinguisher and singlehandedly snuffing it out. As usual, he then wonders why everyone doesn't congratulate him on having bravely averted such a disaster.

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Our president's crazy
Did you hear what he said?

-- The Talking Heads
"Making Flippy Floppy"

It seems like the time has now come to at least begin the discussions about invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to remove a president who has, quite obviously, lost all touch with reality.

Some people, when they reach an advanced age, enter into a period some mental health experts call a "second childhood." This is where they lose all adult sense of what is right, wrong, and allowable, and start behaving like a cranky toddler once again. However, it's not accurate to say that Donald Trump is entering into a period of second childhood himself -- but only for the reason that he never seems to have left this cranky toddler phase behind at any point during his entire life. With him, there's nothing "second" about it, in other words.

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