Donald Trump is doing a victory lap in Israel and the Middle East, as all the hostages held by Hamas are released in exchange for thousands of Palestinian prisoners. The ceasefire has taken hold, and although this is just a first step it is indeed a big one. There's no guarantee the war is over -- the ceasefire could end and Israel could continue their attacks, if no agreement can be reached over the ultimate status of Hamas, but at least if the war does eventually continue it will do so without hostages being at the heart of it. Which is definite progress.

But there is another war still raging, and there are developments with regard to Ukraine and Russia that are worth discussing, so while everyone else is reporting on the Middle East I thought it'd be a good time to take a look at where things stand.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has bogged down. It has become just as much as an intractable standoff as World War I, in fact, with the same trenchlines and miniscule progress on the battlefield. It is a meat-grinder for both sides, but neither side has made huge territorial gains and probably won't. This war has changed warfare forever, since the drone technology in use (on both sides) has made things like tanks almost obsolete. The technological advancements in weaponry in Ukraine will soon be copied by all nations (all nations that don't want to get easily beat in their next war, at the very least).

The biggest "front" of the war, however, is the relentless air attacks from both sides. And on that front, Ukraine is having some successes that might actually be instrumental in forcing Vladimir Putin to the bargaining table. To build on these successes, Trump is now considering providing Tomahawk misses to Ukraine to use on targets deep within Russia, which would be an escalation -- but not a huge one, since Ukraine already has drones and missiles capable of hitting targets hundreds of miles into Russian territory.

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Donald Trump actually achieved something worthwhile this week. A ceasefire deal that will result in all the hostages being released was hammered out between Israel and Hamas, and the guns have gone silent in Gaza. Whether this results in a long-lasting peace deal remain to be seen (there are a lot of details that are still "to be determined" in the deal), but progress has definitely been made. However, Trump did not achieve what he really wanted in all this, as the Nobel Peace Prize was announced today -- for someone else. Maybe he'll be considered next year, but so far the petulance and anger from the MAGA crowd has already begun.

It was impossible not to read between the lines of the Nobel citation, which stated in part:

Democracy is a precondition for lasting peace. However, we live in a world where democracy is in retreat, where more and more authoritarian regimes are challenging norms and resorting to violence. The Venezuelan regime's rigid hold on power and its repression of the population are not unique in the world. We see the same trends globally: rule of law abused by those in control, free media silenced, critics imprisoned, and societies pushed towards authoritarian rule and militarization. In 2024, more elections were held than ever before, but fewer and fewer are free and fair.

So at least the Nobel Committee did mention Trump, in a way, since that list seems awfully familiar, these days.

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Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for the office of Virginia's attorney general, should immediately withdraw his nomination.

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.

Some old text messages from Jones surfaced late last week, and they are absolutely disqualifying for anyone seeking the office of the highest law enforcement officer in the state. Because they explicitly talk of Jones wishing for violence and death to not only a Republican politician, but also for the children of Republican politicians. As I said, to me this is nothing short of disqualifying.

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Over two weeks ago, on September 23rd, Adelita Grijalva won a special election for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, in Arizona's seventh congressional district. She won handily -- by a whopping 39 percent margin -- so the results aren't being contested or undergoing recounts or anything of that nature. She won, plain and simple. It was an emotional victory for her because she will be taking the seat vacated by the death of her father Raúl earlier this year. But she still hasn't been sworn in. She is still just "Representative-Elect Grijalva."

The House speaker has refused to swear Grijalva in. And while their are political reasons for him doing so, this should not be allowed to stand. Her district has been without a representative for too long already, and adding additional weeks to that period is not just frustrating for the people who live there, but it is a dangerous and un-American precedent that is being set. Grijalva is now considering whether to bring legal action to force Mike Johnson to swear her in.

Johnson's position is simply not believable. He is saying that newly-elected representatives in special elections have to wait until the full House meets again -- something he is actively delaying (they were scheduled to get back into session this week, but Johnson decided to extend their vacation). But this is simply not true and there is no history of it ever being true.

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The mayor of Portland and the governor of Oregon are (so far) doing a pretty good job of pushing back against Donald Trump's attempted invasion of the city by soldiers. The state has sued Trump in court and has already won two injunctions preventing the deployment of troops. The first barred Trump from using the Oregon National Guard in the city, and the second was necessary because Trump decided to attempt an end-around play by deploying the California National Guard instead. The judge -- a Trump appointee, by the way -- was not amused, and her second injunction barred Trump from using any National Guard troops from any state in Portland. The judge's rulings were pretty scathing, pointing out that Trump's insistence that there is some sort of insurrection happening in Portland is completely divorced from the reality on the ground.

Trump is reportedly not happy with these rulings, and is now contemplating using the Insurrection Act to deploy troops instead. But it doesn't change the facts that the judge pointed out -- that there simply is no insurrection at all. There are some very small-scale protests in front of a federal building (with an ICE facility), but these are happening in a specific area -- there is no wide-spread protest at all.

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As the government shutdown enters its second week, Democrats appear to have the upper hand. It's not an overwhelming advantage, but it does seem like the Republicans are losing the battle for public opinion. This strengthens the Democrats' position -- for the time being. Public opinion is a fickle thing and could easily shift as the impacts of the shutdown become more widely felt, but for now Democrats seem to be the ones winning the battle for hearts and minds.

The best evidence of this is how Republicans are now shifting their tone. They based their initial argument on a flat-out lie -- that Democrats were fighting for "illegal aliens to get free healthcare," to the tune of a trillion dollars no less -- but Republicans now seem to be bowing to the reality that people absolutely do not want the Republican agenda on healthcare.

Here is a quote from a press conference Speaker of the House Mike Johnson just gave (you can be excused for mistaking this as an attempt at comedy -- I certainly laughed out loud when I read it):

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Normally, on a Friday following the end of a month, we would all be talking about the new jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics right about now. We can't do that today, because the report didn't appear on schedule. This was due to the government being shut down, of course.

Economists who closely watch such things (and track them using their own data) weren't expecting the numbers to be very good:

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Donald Trump has apparently realized he's going to have to bail out American farmers who have been hit hard by his tariffs and other economic policies. And, true to form, he's going to try to do it without getting Congress to approve the funding, according to an article in Politico today:

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So the shutdown has now begun. The blame game is being played by both sides. The news will be full of which government services have been halted, and which are still running (by employees who are not getting paid). And nobody knows when it is going to end, as both sides seem fairly dug in, at this point.

The Democrats' case is pretty easy to make: they are fighting to prevent people's health insurance premiums from skyrocketing on the first of January. And Republicans won't even talk to them.

The Republicans' case seems to be hinged on a huge misdirection: Democrats are fighting for taxpayer dollars to be used on free healthcare for illegal immigrants. This is actually not true, or at the very least you have to do several mental backflips to even understand what they are talking about. The other GOP case is that they offered up a clean budget resolution, which is what Democrats usually are for, so why are they being so obstructionist on this one?

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At the cost of untold millions of dollars, all the top generals and admirals in the United States military flew in from around the world to attend a meeting in Virginia today -- all so they could hear that there will henceforth be no more "fat generals" and that the military will be going to war against American cities. I wish that was some sort of bad joke, but sadly it is not.

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