I must begin with an apology, because once again I find that I cannot bring myself to write a new Hallowe'en column this year.

Usually, at this time of year, I try to come up with frightful tales of horror for both the left and right sides of the political divide -- which I attempt to make both humorous and also so far-fetched that they're ridiculously unbelievable. The "scare factor" is tempered by the "Oh, that could never actually happen" factor, to put it another way.

These are indeed scary times we live in. And it would be impossible for me to try to construct a nightmarish scenario for those on the left that is any more frightful than what we are living through now.

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For the second month in a row, the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates. This move was expected, but the Fed chair is now warning that there might not be a third drop when they meet again in December. A big part of his hesitancy stems from the fact that the Fed is now essentially flying blind, because the government shutdown has caused the flow of economic data to halt. Jerome Powell used a different transportation-based metaphor to describe this, saying: "If there is a high level of uncertainty, then that could be an argument in favor of caution about moving.... What do you do if you are driving in the fog? You slow down. I'm not committing to that. I'm just saying it's certainly a possibility that you would say, 'We really can't see. So let's slow down.'"

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So, let's review, shall we? Last weekend, seven million Americans took to the streets to protest Donald Trump, in the biggest political protest this country has ever seen. The theme of the protest was: "No Kings!" So this week, Trump responded by acting in what can only be described as kingly fashion, in as many ways as he could dream up -- including a rushed demolition of one-third of the White House, without consulting anyone or even attempting to get anyone's permission. He sent the demolition crews in, and within a few days the entire East Wing was nothing more than a pile of rubble. All because a royal decree had been issued.

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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 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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Donald Trump is driving the American economy straight into a ditch. That's a pretty simple concept, and it's (just barely) short enough to fit on a bumpersticker. Which makes it a dandy political slogan for Democrats to start hammering out relentlessly.

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?

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Just before the 20th anniversary of the impact of Hurricane Katrina, a group of current and former Federal Emergency Management Agency employees have signed an extraordinary letter warning America that we could be headed for a similar disaster. Not the hurricane itself, but the man-made disaster which followed, as George W. Bush's FEMA proved to be completely incompetent at disaster recovery in a big way. They even called their letter the "Katrina Declaration," to amplify their warning.

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Current and former employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency just sounded the alarm over their agency's ability to continue their mission. In an extraordinary letter they warn of another impending disaster on the scale of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In fact, the title of their open letter is: "Katrina Declaration And Petition To Congress." In it, they warn that another man-made disaster on the same scale could easily happen soon, as a direct result of the changes the administration of Donald Trump has been making to their agency.

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Two stories dominated the political headlines this week: Texas Democrats fleeing the state to halt the Republican-dominated legislature's efforts to redraw their U.S. House district lines to hand Republicans five more safe seats, and Donald Trump letting incredibly high tariffs begin against over 90 countries worldwide.

We'll get to them in a moment, but what's more interesting is the dog that didn't bark today. Russia was supposed to have a "10-day deadline" to end its invasion of Ukraine, and steep tariffs were supposed to be slapped on them if Vladimir Putin hadn't manage to do so by today. However, nary a headline is talking about the tariffs that were supposed to appear, because once again Putin played Trump like a violin.

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