So far, the people who own the biggest news media outlets in the country have not been doing a notable job of standing up to Donald Trump. The television and cable networks have largely knuckled under, with several of them paying what can only be called multimillion-dollar medieval tributes to the king. Print journalism has had its exceptions -- organizations which are still standing firm and suing Trump in court (and being countersued) -- but some have also adopted "go along to get along" policies (most notably the Washington Post, which has seen an enormous exodus of longstanding journalistic talent leave, after the paper decided their editorial board had to be more friendly to Trump). But today, virtually all of them stood together and said "No!" to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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The United States of America now seems to have officially become a banana republic. That's really the only conclusion one can draw, after the events of the past week (and the past eight months, for good measure).

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[Program Note: Once again, we are pre-empting the entire format of this column due to the seriousness of the situation America now finds itself in. Most weeks, we strive to rise above the firehose of distractions from Donald Trump and his administration, to focus instead on things which truly matter -- which, this week, include Trump once again rolling over for Vladimir Putin while he invades another NATO country's airspace, as well as Trump blowing up boats in international waters just because he feels like it. But this week the distraction truly was what really mattered. Because this week we had a direct assault on the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press in a way not seen since Joe McCarthy trod the halls of the U.S. Capitol. So we had to write an extended rant instead of our usual column, just to warn everyone in advance.]

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:

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This week, scientists revealed what they feel is convincing evidence that life previously existed on Mars. But, rather astonishingly, "Life On Mars!" headlines weren't the story of the week.

What should have been the political story of the week is also largely being ignored by the media as well. Vladimir Putin launched almost 20 drones into Polish airspace, which is a serious escalation since it's hard not to call this an act of war. The drones reportedly weren't armed with explosives, and Russia isn't taking any responsibility; but even so, invading another country's airspace is still a hostile act. Especially when that country is a member of NATO.

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A horrific act of political violence happened in Utah today. The leader of a group of young conservatives was assassinated, apparently for his political viewpoint. I say "apparently" since (as of this writing) the shooter is still at large, so for the time being all we are left with is assumptions as to motive.

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