Today the entire world is waiting to see whether the ceasefire announced last night with Iran is going to prove to be meaningful and lasting or not. So far it seems to be shaky, at best. Will the Strait of Hormuz reopen to oil tankers or not? Is Israel going to undermine the ceasefire? Only time will tell, which is why we're going to wait to see whether this endures or not before commenting at length on it.

Instead, we'd like to focus today on some good news for Democrats. Elections last night in Georgia and Wisconsin brought further proof that the Democratic Party has the wind at their backs heading into this year's midterm election season. As Politico put it, "Democrats just had one of their best election nights since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. Again." That pretty much sums up the shift that has been happening ever since Trump took office.

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[Program Note: I do realize that there is a much bigger story happening today, but we won't know until much later whether Trump is going to follow through on his threats against Iran's civilian infrastructure or not, so I am going to focus on a completely unrelated issue while we all wait to see what will happen next in Trump's war of choice.]

The race to see who will be California's next governor has had some big news break over the past few days, and at least one of these developments may prove to be a real earthquake (that's my mandatory "California earthquake" reference -- I thought I'd get it out of the way right here at the start).

The big shakeup comes on the Republican side of the race. To review the full landscape of this race (for those of you who haven't been paying attention), there are two big GOP candidates in the race, three big Democratic candidates, and a handful of others. The primary election will happen at the very start of June, meaning it is now less than two months away. California's primary system will produce only two candidates from all of those running (no matter what their party affiliation is), and no write-in candidates are allowed on the general election ballot, so our next governor will be one or the other of the two who emerge from the primary. Up until now, the polling has been very close but also very low -- all five of the leading candidates have been regularly posting double-digit numbers in the polls, but none has really broken even the 20 percent mark -- so it is still very much a very wide-open race. And the fear (for Democrats) is that with three viable candidates on their side (and a smattering of minor candidates as well) and only two on the GOP side, with an electorate that is roughly 60-40 Democratic, we could end up with the two Republicans both winning and shutting out any Democratic candidate from the general election. That's the race in a nutshell.

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It's pretty clear by now that Donald Trump sees war as nothing more than a video game. Having avoided going to war as a young man (by paying a doctor to lie about his non-existent "bone spurs"), he has no concept of what a real war is like. Nor is he interested in finding out. His daily briefings reportedly include a two-minute video of American bombs and missiles "blowin' stuff up." And he has no overall plan or even any clear objectives left in his war of choice against Iran. He's just making it up as he goes along, while attempting to gaslight the country to believe his own warped reality.

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It was a very busy week in politics and we've got a lot to get to, but let's start out on a happy note for once, shall we? NASA's Artemis II mission is on its way to circle the moon, the first time humans have done so in over 50 years. So check out some awesome photos the astronauts took of Earth, including one that shows some Northern Lights (at the very edge of image). Out of this world! Something America can be proud of (during a time when that is rare indeed)....

Speaking of things quickly rocketing upward, this week the average national price of a gallon of gasoline blew through the "four bucks a gallon" milestone and hit $4.10 today. To which we can only say: "Ouch!"

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This is going to be a much shorter column than I had expected to write. Because last night, Donald Trump appeared on television to America and said basically nothing. He spoke for 20 minutes and didn't manage to say anything new or informative at all during the entire time. He essentially just read off a series of social media posts he's already made previously. But there was just no substance to any of it.

All the questions, worries, fears, and concerns that Americans had before Trump spoke still exist. None have been answered or assuaged or explained at all. So while I had intended to spend time analyzing Trump's speech today, there's just no "there there" to analyze. It was a giant nothingburger of a speech.

The overall impression Trump gave off is that he's now bored with the war. Even his daily diet of video clips of "blowin' stuff up" isn't doing it for him anymore. He does not want to face the fact that things have gone badly and repercussions have taken place. He has convinced himself that all of the bad things are somehow magically (and instantly) going to go away after he gives the order to stop the bombing and send the troops home.

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Last year on this date, Donald Trump wanted to proclaim his "Liberation Day" tariffs to the world. Saner heads prevailed at the White House, and Trump was talked into postponing his announcement for a day. This year, those saner heads obviously weren't available, so Trump is going to address the nation today (of all days) on the state of his war of choice with Iran, with gas prices heading north of $4.00 a gallon. How could anyone live almost 80 years in America without realizing the cultural significance of this date on the calendar? It's a mystery, that's for sure.

Personally, I think it'd be amusing if Trump took to the airwaves tonight and boldly announced he was resigning the office of the presidency at midnight tonight. Then just before the clock struck twelve, he could put out a statement on social media saying: "April Fool's! Gotcha!"

But that's not very likely to happen. Instead, we will get Trump lying about the war, lying about his reasons for going to war, lying about the status of the war, lying about the objectives of the war, and lying about how he's going to boldly end it. And he won't finish the speech with a hearty "April Fool's!" so the media and the public will have to (once again) pretend to take everything he says seriously.

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The national average of the price of a gallon of gasoline now stands at $4.05. It broke through the $4-a-gallon barrier today after spending roughly a week hovering just below it. This isn't really a major change for consumers (it is only the difference of a few pennies), but it is a big psychological barrier that has now been breached. The only time gas prices have been higher in the past decade was at the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine (when not only gas prices spiked but the inflation rate skyrocketed as well). Then, the average U.S. price of gas rose to $5.00 per gallon before falling back again.

The future trajectory of gas prices this time around is still an open question. Depending on what happens next, it could continue to climb, it could flatten out and peak, or it could even start the long, slow slide back down again. The biggest factor in all of this is whether Donald Trump decides to send American soldiers to invade Iranian soil.

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At this point, it seems fitting that The Secret Handshake be officially proclaimed Donald Trump's court jester.

The group, as the name implies, is secret. It is an artists' collective but nobody knows who is behind it or a member of it. They use intermediaries to file for National Park permits to display art installations on the National Mall without fanfare, and then they just silently appear. And they've outdone themselves, once again.

Here's how the Washington Post reported the story (with some great photos):

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Maybe we need a new word for the way Donald Trump seems to be running the country: "chaocracy." Rule by chaos. The "Madman Theory" writ large. Nobody has any clue what's going to happen next, from Trump himself all the way down to average Americans and the rest of the world.

Of course, this has always been Donald Trump's modus operandi to some extent, but it is much more apparent now that we're in what seems to be a prolonged war. Trump is now attempting a feint in this war, but nobody's really sure what is the feint and what will become reality in the next few weeks. Trump himself probably doesn't know, at this point.

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In all sorts of ways, Donald Trump is getting some very bad numbers these days. Perhaps this has something to do with his newfound eagerness to somehow quickly end his war of choice in Iran? One can only speculate....

Trump's numbers are bad and they just keep right on coming. Within a few weeks, we will get new official inflation numbers which will reflect at least the first few weeks of Trump's War, when the price of gasoline started to skyrocket. And just today, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development put out their new estimates, which aren't good. The O.E.C.D. is now predicting that the inflation rate in America will average out to a whopping 4.2 percent this year -- over a full percentage point up from their last forecast. So it wouldn't surprise me in the least to see the official U.S. inflation number climb well above three percent in the March numbers, and it also won't be a surprise if they top four percent by next month, either.

Meanwhile, on Wall Street, stocks had their worst day today since the beginning of the war, while oil prices rose on the world market. The S&P average fell 1.7 percent today, and is down over 400 points from the start of the month (when it was at 6,900). Mortgage rates are jumping upwards as well, which hurts homebuyers. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate was under 6.0 percent before the war started, and has now risen to 6.38 percent (and climbing).

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