It had already been a horrific weekend. On December 13 a mass shooting at Brown University’s Barus & Holley Engineering Building in Providence, Rhode Island left two students dead and nine others injured. The gunman remains at large, and a multi-agency manhunt is ongoing.
The next day a terrorist mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia left at least 15 people dead and around 40 injured. The attack targeted a Jewish Hanukkah celebration and was carried out by a father-son duo inspired by Islamic State ideology. It followed an increase in antisemitic attacks in the country including one in July where an arsonist set fire to a synagogue in Melbourne while worshipers were inside.
Then came word from the trendy Brentwood section of Los Angeles. Hollywood and the rest of the world were stunned when acclaimed filmmaker Rob Reiner, 78, and his wife, photographer Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead in their home in what police described as a homicide. Authorities have since arrested their son, Nick Reiner, 32, and charged him with murder.
What do you say about the human condition when faced with that sequence of events?
The shocked reaction to the Reiners’ murder was overwhelming itself. Rob Reiner was praised not only as a great talent on both sides of the camera but also as a mentor and friend who shared that talent with a generosity rare in the cutthroat entertainment business. There was one exception which I will write about at some other time.
Earlier this year I wrote about the passing of Diane Keaton and Robert Redford and noted they appear many times on my list of favorite films. The passing of Rob Reiner leaves a similar hole in my heart.
Rob Reiner was born in the Bronx, New York in 1947. He spent his childhood in New Rochelle, where his father Carl would place his fictional family of Rob and Laura Petrie on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” They moved to California in the early 1960s. Like his father, Rob got his start as an actor before stepping behind the camera. His breakthrough role was Mike Stivic on “All in the Family” in 1970. Mike was the outspoken liberal son-in-law of Carroll O’Connor‘s conservative bigoted Archie Bunker. These are my first memories of Rob Reiner. Mike’s battles with Archie, written by the great Norman Lear, brought into America’s living room topics roiling the nation but up until then considered too controversial for television.
Now the list of films begins. And I will only note some my favorites. Reiner’s first feature was 1980’s “Spinal Tap,” a groundbreaking “mockumentary” that was a breakout hit. His next movie was “The Sure Thing,” a coming of age romantic comedy, followed by “Stand By Me,” based on a Stephen King story. King was also the source for “Misery,” which would be one Reiner’s biggest theatrical hits.
My list of films also includes “The Princess Bride.” Also “A Few Good Men” and “The American President,” both written by Aaron Sorkin. “When Harry Met Sally,” my favorite rom-com, “Rumor Has It…,” and “The Bucket List.” The number is films in which Reiner acted, usually in a supporting role, are too numerous to list here.
The list of testimonials has been astonishing. I am just going to cite one, an Instagram post from Meg Ryan, who starred along with Billy Crystal in “When Harry Met Sally.”
The Secretary of State is considered the senior advisor to the president. Dean of the cabinet. He is fourth in the line of succession to the presidency. The first Secretary of State was none other than Thomas Jefferson.
The current holder of this key office is Marco Rubio, the 72nd secretary. He used to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate from 2011 to 2025 and has long been a prominent figure in Republican politics. You would think his hands were full. His State Department is grappling with major foreign policy challenges like deterring China’s influence in the Western Hemisphere, managing migration pressures from Latin America, the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, negotiating peace efforts in the Middle East, and handling military against Venezuela.
But Rubio, or as Donald Trump used to call him, “Little Marco,” has something else on his mind. Fonts. Specifically, the typeface used by America’s diplomats on documents. Rubio has ordered diplomats to stop using the Calibri font and return to the more traditional Times New Roman.
Against the backdrop of all the crisis the nation is facing, the font edict looks less like a matter of professionalism and more like a symbolic skirmish. A way to score points in domestic culture battles while the department wrestles with urgent global crises.
The story behind the memo is made clear when you consider the order reverses a shift by President Joe Biden’s administration to the less formal typeface that Rubio called wasteful, confusing and unbefitting the dignity of US government documents. In other words, if Biden did it, it must be reversed. We already know Trump is obsessed with Biden. Now we know Rubio shares the syndrome.
Experts say Calibri is modern, clean, and screen-friendly, while Times New Roman is traditional, formal, and optimized for dense print text. The choice between them often depends on whether you want readability on digital displays or a classic, authoritative look in print. So, this is a judgment call.
But more telling, the Biden administration’s decision to switch fonts originated in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office. DEI is the number one boogeyman for the Trump administration. The Biden administration had made the switch because Calibri is generally considered to be more accessible for people with reading challenges due to the font’s simpler shapes and wider spacing, which make its letters easier to distinguish.
“Typography shapes how official documents are perceived in terms of cohesion, professionalism and formality,” Rubio said in a cable sent to all US embassies and consulates abroad. In it, he said the 2023 shift to the sans serif Calibri font emerged from misguided diversity, equity and inclusion policies pursued by his predecessor, Antony Blinken.
Anything that helps people with disabilities access government documents is not on the Trump agenda. Since taking over the State Department in January, Rubio has systematically dismantled DEI programs in line with President Donald Trump’s broader instructions to all federal agencies. Rubio has abolished offices and initiatives that had been created to promote and foster diversity and inclusion, including in Washington and at overseas embassies and consulates, and also ended foreign assistance funding for DEI projects abroad.
“Although switching to Calibri was not among the department’s most illegal, immoral, radical or wasteful instances of DEI it was nonetheless cosmetic,” according to Rubio’s cable obtained by the Associated Press and first reported by The New York Times.
Americas can rest easy. The world may be going to hell but at least the nation’s chief foreign policy expert has his fonts under control.
The Supreme Court, or rather the six Republican justices on the Supreme Court, have handed Donald Trump another victory. They issued a stay, blocking the order of a three-judge panel in Texas, which found the recent reapportionment of the state’s Congressional districts to be racially motivated and therefor illegal. The six, has been their pattern all year, issued their order in the dark of night on the “shadow” docket without an explanation or opinion. Greg Abbott, et al. v. League of United Latin American Citizens, et al.
The map the lower court panel blocked was seen as one of the most aggressive mid‑decade gerrymanders in recent history. The Supreme Court stay allows Texas to proceed with the new map, which analysts say could give Republicans five additional U.S. House seats in the 2026 midterms.
Gerrymandering 101
What, in a nutshell, is gerrymandering? The Encyclopedia Britannica has a wonderful explanation from which I have borrowed the graphic above. The American Constitution requires that every ten years we conduct a “census” to apportion representation in the House of Representatives. The Fourteenth Amendment, Section 2 begins, “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.”
Once the number of representatives is determined by the census, it is up to each state to draw the maps of legislative districts. Because the states have statewide elections for senators, governors, and to decide members of the Electoral College, there is data on how the state as a whole divides between the parties. Using the graphic above we find of a total population of fifty, thirty (60%) are orange voters while twenty (40%) are purple voters.
From that starting point, the state could draw “fair” maps which distributed the people in such a manner to generate three orange and two purple representatives, proportionate to the statewide electorate. But the state could also gerrymander, producing an outcome, using the example on the right above, of five orange and no purple representatives, or two orange and three purple representatives.
The term “gerrymander” was coined as a portmanteau of the name Elbridge Gerry and the word “salamander.” Gerry, who was the governor of Massachusetts, signed a redistricting law that redrew district lines in a way that favored his party. Critics said the new map created a weirdly shaped district which resembled a salamander. A satirical cartoon published in the Boston Gazette on March 26, 1812, popularized the word. The cartoon depicting the irregular shape helped turn a local political attack into a lasting political term.
The Donnie-Mander
The political parties have a long history of manipulating their maps to various degrees every ten years when the new census requires a reallocation of seats. But two things make this year’s manipulations unusual. First, this is a mid-census reapportionment. The last census was in 2020 with new maps taking effect in 2022 in most states. Second, this mid-census revision to the 2022 map came at the direct demand of Donald Trump. Texas’s Republican Governor Greg Abbott heeded Trump’s call and generated a new map that may add as many as five Republicans to the House in 2026. That is the map the Supreme Court now says can be put into place. With the Republican control in the House hanging on a tiny seven vote majority, Trump is clearly afraid the Democrats could gain control in the next election.
This Trump inspired Donnie-Mander, now sanctified by the Supreme Court, has set off an unprecedented arms race of mid-decade redistricting across the country. Missouri and North Carolina have passed their own Republican leaning maps. California voters approved a map designed to cancel out the Texas gains. Virginia and Maryland are working on new maps favoring Democrats. Illinois is considering one. Florida and Indiana are working on revisions on the Republican side.
National Public Radio has been keeping score on its web site. As of this writing they show a slight gain for Republicans on the basis of district voting patterns in next year’s election. Considering his atrocious polling numbers, Trump is going to need all the help he can get. The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, one of my favorite pollsters, sees 2026 shaping up to be much too close to call.
Congress has over the years tried to set standards and take control of the redistricting process. It has never been able to pass a law to bring order out of the chaos.
The majority on the Supreme Court, by allowing these partisan mid-decade redistrictings, has created a free-for-all which is a lose-lose for the American people. But 2026 does promise to be a good show.
Someday someone will produce a study that will try to quantify how many people died as a result of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.‘s war on vaccines, medicine and science. Tens of thousands? Millions? It is hard to predict.
Donald Trump, implementing the Project 2025 plan to destroy the federal government, has appointed the worst possible people to run the executive agencies. It is hard to select the most deplorable of the deplorables. But RFK, Jr. is certainly in the top group.
Kennedy is a former heroin addict who as a youth was expelled from two schools, dumped a dead bear in Central Park, has no medical or science degree, and was labeled a “predator” by his own family. He made a career out of being an anti-vaxxer, spreading false information about vaccines. In return for his political support in 2024, Trump named Kennedy Secretary of Health and Human Services. At his own confirmation hearing Kennedy himself stated that Trump had “offered him control of the public health agencies,” including HHS, CDC, FDA, NIH, and USDA.
To date Kennedy has Challenged Vaccine Consensus: Despite being confronted with overwhelming scientific data confirming vaccine safety and effectiveness, Secretary Kennedy has continued to question the consensus, promoting the scientifically disproven link between vaccines and autism. His handpicked crew of anti-vaxxers are rewriting vaccine recommendation standards which have nearly eliminated many childhood diseases.
Altered CDC Information: He publicly instructed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to revise language on its website about vaccines and autism, moving away from the long-standing scientific position that no link exists. He is preventing government researchers from publishing papers in the world’s leading refereed scientific journals. His actions have met with universal disgust by the scientific and public health community.
Dismantled Advisory Boards: He fired the 17 voting members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which provides independent, expert advice to the CDC on vaccine recommendations. This move was described as a “coup” by physician groups, who view it as a destruction of the committee’s credibility and a disruption of the transparent, evidence-based process. He then replaced them with handpicked appointees. Millions of Americans who rely on Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance will face new barriers to vaccination, as insurers typically only cover vaccines recommended by the ACIP. The committee’s weakened language signals a preference for personalized consultation that could result in individuals being told they should avoid vaccination based on perceived rather than actual risk.
Mass Firings and Reduced Capacity: He oversaw the firing of thousands of employees across key agencies like the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which critics argue severely weakens the nation’s capacity to respond to public health threats.
Changed COVID-19 Vaccine Recommendations: His department unilaterally removed the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children and pregnant people from the CDC’s immunization schedule, bypassing the standard scientific review process. He is now setting up to greatly reduce the availability of vaccines for all types of diseases and for all age groups, especially the young.
Censoring Research: Kennedy’s HHS has implemented policies to scrutinize and censor research that is deemed “controversial, high profile, or sensitive.”
This list is far from complete. And we haven’t yet survived the first year of RFK, Jr.’s reign. Eventually it will fill volumes.
Kennedy has already made a fool of Senator Bill Cassidy. The Republican doctor from Louisiana and chair of the Senate’s heath committee thought he had a promise that Kennedy would not oppose vaccines when he supplied the crucial vote to approve RFK Jr.’s nomination. Nine months later that promise has been broken. Cassidy, a staunch supporter of Trump, has both egg on his face and blood on his hands.
There have been consequences. There are measles outbreaks in several states, most prominently Texas, where state government has often questioned the use of vaccines. Kennedy has refused to endorse vaccination, which is highly effective in preventing the disease. The CDC’s own data shows childhood deaths on the rise as vaccination rates fall. Instead of vaccination Kennedy has promoted unscientific therapies, like specific vitamins and drugs, as treatments for measles, which medical experts have called “misleading and dangerous,” with reports of serious complications like liver injury linked to their use.
This attack on science is nothing new for Donald Trump. We now have multiple studies showing that the United States experienced high COVID-19 death rates and higher excess all-cause mortality compared with peer countries. We can blame that on the anti-treatment policies of Trump and Republican governors who not only resisted medical advice on dealing with the pandemic but also demonized the medical professionals working to cope with an unprecedented threat. Kennedy has cut most government funding for mRNA research. This type of vaccine development led to the COVID vaccine and promises to produce a new revolution in disease prevention. America stands to be caught defenseless by the next COVID type outbreak.
And just to show you how personal this can get, consider an essay in The New Yorker magazine. The author is Tatiana Schlossberg and she chronicles her battle with leukemia, a diagnosis she received moments after the birth of her daughter in 2024, before the confirmation of her cousin Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who she calls “Bobby.”
“As I spent more and more of my life under the care of doctors, nurses, and researchers striving to improve the lives of others, I watched as Bobby cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers; slashed billions in funding from the National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest sponsor of medical research; and threatened to oust the panel of medical experts charged with recommending preventive cancer screenings.
“Hundreds of N.I.H. grants and clinical trials were canceled, affecting thousands of patients. I worried about funding for leukemia and bone-marrow research at Memorial Sloan Kettering. I worried about the trials that were my only shot at remission. Early in my illness, when I had the postpartum hemorrhage, I was given a dose of misoprostol to help stop the bleeding. This drug is part of medication abortion, which, at Bobby’s urging, is currently “under review” by the Food and Drug Administration. I freeze when I think about what would have happened if it had not been immediately available to me and to millions of other women who need it to save their lives or to get the care they deserve.”
Even if the Trump-Kennedy carnage were reversed promptly, much damage has already been done. Scores of fired researchers and many more grad students denied research funds at our major universities have fled the field. European nations are actively recruiting the best and the brightest from America. The research will continue. The new treatments and medicines will be created. But they will come from Europe, or from China.
Democrats thought they had a good issue. They’d pass still another continuing resolution to reopen the government in return for an agreement from Republicans to extend special subsidies for insurance policies bought through the Affordable Care Act. They misjudged the willingness of Donald Trump to continue his war on America by inflicting more pain on the American people. Cut food assistance for more than forty million Americans? Sure. Cripple the air traffic system by requiring controllers to work without pay? Of course. Furlough hundreds of thousands of federal workers and threaten to penalize them by not restoring their wages when they return to work. No problem.
Democrats underestimated Trump’s need to inflict pain. He loves it. He gets off on it. Nothing massages his massive ego more than enjoying a luxury party at his Florida home while people can’t buy food. If they can’t get groceries, let them eat cake. The ACA is also known as Obamacare. Trump hates Obamacare. A doubling or tripling of premium rates for Obamacare insurance policies just gives Trump more ammunition to attack the program. Trump has been trying to kill Obamacare for decades. He insists he will replace it with something better. He never produces a new plan. His supporters don’t seem to mind. So, Trump would not give in to the Democrats no matter what.
In the end eight senators who usually vote with the Democratic caucus broke ranks. None of the eight is up for election next year. Two have announced they are retiring. For the record, they are:
John Fetterman
Pennsylvania (2028)
Maggie Hassan
New Hampshire (2028)
Tim Kaine
Virginia (2030)
Angus King
Maine (2030)
Jacky Rosen
Nevada (2030)
Jeanne Shaheen
New Hampshire (retiring)
Dick Durbin
Illinois (retiring)
Catherine Cortez Masto
Nevada (2028)
Are these eight heroes or villains? We will not know for some time. Having come to the realization that Trump was not going to budge no matter how much Republicans took the blame for the shutdown, the eight figured it was time to reopen the government in exchange for a December Senate vote that would force Republicans to go on the record on the issue of the subsidies. The problem with this logic is that the promised vote applies only to the Senate. Trump acolyte Speaker Mike Johnson is not under any obligation to allow a vote in the House.
Voters who face sticker shock from big increases in their Obamacare premiums might take it out on the Republicans. Or they might not. The eight who surrendered will not personally face the consequences in 2026. They, like Trump, just don’t seem to give a damn.
I remember how proud I was the day I reported to work at WBBM-TV, the CBS owned and operated station in Chicago. It was in October 1974. I was to start my first “real,” that is, “post school,” job. My position was “Assistant Political Analyst.” That was a fancy title for an entry level job more commonly known in newsrooms as a “legman.” Legmen, and legwomen, assist senior reporters and columnists as needed. One of the station’s anchors also had the title of “Political Analyst” and I was to help him in everything from researching and producing his stories to doing his expense account and picking up his laundry.
But here I was at bottom of the ladder at the company where Walter Cronkite presided over the evening newscast. The same newscast I had been watching for most of my life. Yes, I felt proud.
I have first or secondhand knowledge of protests in New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. They were peaceful. Crowds were almost jubilant at having an opportunity to voice their opposition to the actions of the Trump administration. The only place I heard Trump supporters showed up to counter the protest was Palo Alto, California. No Kings protesters refused to engage with the Trumpies, who they feared were trying to provoke them.
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