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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The ongoing partial government shutdown is about to break the record for the longest government shutdown in history. It affects only the Department of Homeland Security, which has limited the shutdown's visibility to the average American (in comparison to previous wider-scale shutdowns), but that has been changing over the past few weeks. The Transportation Security Administration is now publicly bearing the brunt of the shutdown, as T.S.A. agents at airports are increasingly deciding not to go to work (some of them can't even afford the gas to get there) or just to quit altogether. This has increased wait times at certain airports, which the media picked up on and has been featuring nightly on the news.

This increase in public pressure has actually spurred some movement in Congress, but it may not be enough to strike a deal. Congress is scheduled to scarper off on one of their multiweek vacations starting Friday, so if no deal is reached it will mean at least another two weeks of nothing getting done. What's interesting in the midst of all this is that the public doesn't even seem interested in playing "the blame game" that usually accompanies such shutdowns, as most people just lay the blame on "the politicians" without specifying a party. They show a blanket disgust at the way the political system in America just does not work, in a "pox on both your houses" sort of way.

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California voters were supposed to see a gubernatorial debate this evening (well... early evening -- for some reason it was scheduled to run at 5:00 P.M., when most people aren't even home from work yet, but whatever...), but it has now been cancelled. The University of Southern California announced this morning that it was cancelling the debate due to criticism over who would have been allowed on stage and who would have been excluded.

The California governor's race is an unusual one for a couple of different reasons. First, there will be no incumbent, since sitting Governor Gavin Newsom cannot run again due to term limits. So the field is wide open for both major political parties. Second, because of the dynamics of the race and the odd primary system California uses, the outcome of the race might put two Republican candidates on the ballot for the general election in November, with zero Democratic candidates. That is an unthinkable outcome for a state that is deep blue (Democrats outnumber Republicans by at least 60/40 in the state). And thirdly, while this race is important, very few people in California are paying much attention to it at all -- which is odd. It might be due to neither party running an obvious rock-star of a candidate who essentially clears the field in the primaries. But for whatever reason, most California voters have yet to tune in to the race at all. Which is why a televised debate might have been important.

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It's a sad sort of commentary on the times we live in when the leaders of a country we are at war with sound more believable than the American president... but here we are. Donald Trump continues to flail around and issue blustery statements, but as always you have to wonder how much of it is bluster, how much of it is wishful thinking, and how much of it is just sheer delusion.

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Donald Trump seems to be determined to break as many campaign promises as he possibly can, in the shortest period of time possible. Conveniently (for Democrats), he is doing all of this right at the start of the midterm campaign season, as the first states conduct their primaries. This seems like a rather spectacular way to commit political suicide, but then again Trump is a master at avoiding consequences, so who really knows how it will all play out?

Here we are at the end of Week Three of Trump's War, with no end in sight. Remember him campaigning on avoiding foreign wars? Well, all of that has gone right out the window. In the midst of all of this, Trump was downright astonished that learn that NATO actually can be useful to the United States (who knew?), but due to his naked belligerence towards them (complete with threats to take over Greenland and Canada, playground insults, and other assorted instances of boorishness and contempt), they are not exactly leaping into action to help Trump out. It's hard to blame them for this, but it certainly is amusing to see Trump flip-flopping from threatening NATO countries to insisting (in that petulant way only a butt-hurt 6-year-old can manage) that he really doesn't need their help at all, dammit!

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In assessing how Donald Trump's war of choice is proceeding, we turn once again to the metric most Americans are using as their chief measurement: the average nationwide price of a gallon of gasoline now stands at $3.91. That is up $1.16 from the mid-January lowpoint of this year, and it is up 97 cents from the day before the bombing started. It is also only nine cents away from the psychological "four bucks a gallon" milestone (which the media is likely to prominently feature, when we do hit it). And currently, there is absolutely no end in sight to the high prices -- which still have yet to peak.

Obviously, this is a big political problem for Trump. But of course, he has only himself to blame. He did not prepare the American people for this war, he did not consult with any of America's allies, he did not listen to military experts who warned him what Iran would likely do (close the Strait of Hormuz), and he simply has no "Plan B" for how to extricate the country from his growing mess. If he had done any of those things differently, perhaps we would still be in the same position right now, but Trump might have built more solid support (both at home and worldwide) and the economic pain might not be such a looming political disaster for him.

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As every day of Trump's War progresses, it becomes more and more apparent that Trump and his entire administration are completely clueless about what they are doing. Which (it will come as no surprise to learn) they truly have no one to blame for but themselves. Six months ago, as NOTUS reports, "the Department of State fired its oil and gas experts... the administration laid off staff who would have been responsible for gaming out possible scenarios if the Strait of Hormuz was closed."

The story gets even worse:

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