Last week, Iran offered Donald Trump an offramp. Days later, Trump announced he was refusing to take it. The offer reportedly came after a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, where the two sides talked for the first time in months. Iran essentially offered up virtually the same deal that was agreed to in the Memorandum Of Understanding earlier this year, except with a one-week timeline. Trump turned it down.

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Donald Trump just hosted the leader of China on a state visit, and in the end it turned out to be a total flop. No big announcements happened, no big deals were cut, in fact nothing much of anything took place, other than Trump trying desperately to impress Xi Jinping with his new heliport and all the other laughable modifications he's done to the White House. Xi wasn't notably impressed (of course), but he did promise two more giant pandas would be heading to America soon, so that's something, at the very least.

The truly epic part of this failure at summitry was that none of it was caught on the television cameras. Which must have thoroughly cheesed off Trump, for whom an event that doesn't appear on television simply does not exist.

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When the American economy sours, voters react. Usually, this means punishing whichever party is in power in Washington in a generalized "throw the bums out" sort of way. The voters see that the people running the country have screwed things up, so they decide to give the other team a chance at making things better. However, in most such cases there is no easily-identifiable cause of the economy going south. The voters just feel a sort of free-floating malaise and they turn on the party in power to show their general disapproval. It is actually rare that there is an easily-identifiable event or policy choice that people can point to and say: "This is why the economy sucks right now."

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That headline, while meant to be amusing, is contemplating a rather broad definition of the historical political metaphor. The term "lame duck" actually predates its use in politics (according to Wikipedia), and was first used in a political sense in America in 1863. Political cartoons depicting lame ducks date back over a century. Used in the traditional sense, the term refers to the period between when politicians lose their bid for re-election and when the new Congress and/or president is sworn into office. The congressional session after the November elections but before the new Congress is sworn in has long been known as the "lame-duck Congress."

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The 2026 midterm elections are going to answer several open political questions, for the next few years at least. The answers to these questions might wind up being murky -- with some outcomes and evidence pointing one way, and some the exact opposite. The narrative of this election hasn't been defined by the pundits as of yet, but likely will be after the vote-counting is done. What is the conventional wisdom going to be, come mid-November? That will all depend on the results, of course, but for the moment we can at least identify some of the big questions.

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This week, Donald Trump addressed the fears many are having over artificial intelligence by sending out a message: "The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!"

Many people's reaction to this was simple: "OK, so it's official then... we're screwed." Plenty of other scathing comments appeared online, with our favorite being: "You didn't know there was a 'b' in the word dumb."

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Today was another day where I just had too much to do in real life to devote the time to writing a new column, so I will begin with my apology for the interruption in service.

I looked back for a column to run again today, and found one I wrote at the very start (written only a few days in) of Trump's war of choice with Iran. I find it has stood the test of time fairly well (especially the part about it devolving into a war of attrition), which is why I decided to run it again today, just for a look back.

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There is no better example of the maxim "Everything Trump touches dies" (or just "ETTD") than the ongoing saga of the once-proud John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts. Today, the board -- chaired by none other than Donald Trump himself -- voted to close the Kennedy Center indefinitely, because those meanie judges won't let Trump slap his name on the outside of the building. Trump's planetary-sized ego won't rest until everything he sees in Washington D.C. has been renamed to honor him, plain and simple. So the likely outcome (barring other judicial interventions) is that the Kennedy Center will remain dark until the next president is sworn into office. Because ETTD.

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Did this year's "October surprise" happen early? I have been pondering this question all weekend, after several major developments have taken place in the increasingly regional war in the Middle East. Could these developments affect the American midterm elections in the way that traditional last-minute political "surprises" have in the final weeks before the public votes? So far, the answers seem unclear, but the potential certainly exists, even though few have commented on this possibility.

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We're going to begin today with a record-setting number. Today, the nationwide average of the price of diesel fuel hit a new high of $6.05 per gallon. It's the first time in American history that diesel has sold for more than six bucks a gallon, in fact. The price of diesel has risen around 20 cents within the past week, which is going to be felt by everyone. Your car or truck may not run on diesel, but you know what does? Farmers' tractors and all their other farm equipment. And the trucks and trains that transport all the food farmers produce -- as well as just about everything else you buy -- to your local stores and supermarkets.

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