We already know how 2025 has ended. Donald Trump has made it a wall-to-wall disaster with his illegal exercise of power with the goal of trashing the government and sweeping aside the norms of law and reason by which we have governed for 250 years. Even on New Year’s Eve he has vetoed a bipartisan law aimed at providing drinking water to tens of thousands. He has also reposted social media attacks on the memory of Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy, who tragically died of cancer at the age of 35.
These acts of retribution, jealously, and sheer cruelty are standard procedure for Trump, who seems to draw perverse pleasure from these vile acts.
But there is hope that 2026 can be different. the new year is also an election year. That means we the people get a chance to reverse the mistake made in 2024 and strengthen the roadblocks that keep Trump from putting a crown on his head. in 2025 the Republican majority in Congress abdicated its traditional role as legislative partner and overseer of the executive. But every member of the House of Representatives faces reelection in 2026. So does one-third of the members of the Senate. Voters can make their disapproval heard loud and clear.
Buckle up. 2026 will be a rough ride. But we can make a difference. Some assembly will be required.
When I wrote about the tragic murder of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner, I noted the tremendous outpouring of sentiment saluting them not only for their contributions to the entertainment industry but also for their role in the community and their humanitarian work. I did mention that there was one notable dissent, and said I’d talk about it in the future.
I did not want to spoil the moment then and in truth I do not want to do so now. The problem is that, as the world is painfully aware, the dissent came from Donald Trump and he, by virtue of the position he holds, cannot be ignored. I resent that he dominates the news. I resent that he takes all the oxygen out of the room. I resent that he is the worst example of a human being I have ever seen. But he can’t be ignored. He must be called out. Rob Reiner would have wanted it that way.
Within hours of the time the news about the Reiners’ killing broke, Trump had put a post on his captive social media platform that was probably the most vicious thing I have ever seen. I asked one of my AI assistants what was the most common adjective being used to describe it and the response was, “cruel,” followed by “inappropriate,” “disrespectful,”“distasteful,” “callous,” “vile,”“incendiary.” and “depraved.” With my apologies, just in case you haven’t seen it yourself, read it and judge for yourself.
Trump’s post itself described Reiner as having a “mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME” and called him a “deranged person”.
Trump’s problem with Reiner is that the actor and director was also a progressive activist, a supporter of Democratic candidates, and an outspoken critic of Trump . A few hours after the post, Trump told a reporter that Reiner was “a deranged person” who “was very bad for our country.”
In the decade since he announced his presidential campaign by branding immigrants as criminals and rapists, the accepted wisdom about Donald Trump has become that no matter how outrageous are the things he says, he feels no consequences. This time was a little, just a little, different.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) labeled the discourse “inappropriate and disrespectful,” challenging his GOP colleagues to defend it. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) a former staunch ally, she rebuked the president, stating the deaths were a “family tragedy” that should be met with “empathy,” not politics. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.), both condemned the remarks as “wrong,” urging for “sympathy and compassion” instead of political attacks. And conservative commentators including Jenna Ellis (Trump’s former lawyer) and David Urban (former senior adviser) called the remarks “indefensible” and a “horrible example”.
We are tempted to just throw up our hands and ignore the monster. But Trump didn’t stop with one vile act. Having already turned the Oval Office into a cheap looking gold filigreed imitation of The Palace of Versailles, he added giant ornate gold letters labeling the rooms of the White House, like the signs one sees in the memory section of an assisted living facility, and created a “Presidential Walk of Fame” featuring pictures of past leaders with grossly unflattering images for men he doesn’t like;
Trump has now added to the rogues gallery plaques which offer partisan comments on the past presidents, reflecting his personal perspective. Joe Biden‘s plaque repeats a false claim that the 46th president, a Democrat, took office “as a result of the most corrupt election ever,” when, in fact, he defeated Mr. Trump in 2020 in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, is labeled “one of the most divisive political figures in American history.”
Trump also demanded, and was granted, free television time on December 17. Instead of a holiday address, or an announcement of a major event, Trump used 18 minutes for one of his regular rants basically saying everything has been great since he returned to office and anything that isn’t great is the Democrats’ fault. His delivery was so frenetic he had many wondering if he was under the influence of some form of medication.
But Trump’s pièce de résistance for this holiday season has to be the rebranding of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. At the beginning of the year, Trump fired members of the Center’s board, appointed loyal lackeys in their place, and had them “elect” him chairman. He subsequently approved all the performers named winners of the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors, ordered a redesign of award medal which was originally created in 1978 and used ever since, and named himself as host of the award ceremony.
Then came the announcement, from the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt rather than from Trump’s hand-picked board, that the center will now be known as “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” The vice president of public relations at the Kennedy Center later confirmed the announcement. The center’s web site carried a new logo within hours. The next day, workers were installing new signs on the exterior of the building. Trump said he was honored and surprised by the gesture. That is just more Trump BS. He had been referring to the center as “Trump-Kennedy” for months.
Not that it matters to Trump, but this renaming appears to be illegal. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was established by the John F. Kennedy Center Act, 20 U.S.C. §§ 76h–76s, which outlines its purpose, governance, and operational framework. The law specifies the name, makes the center the only living memorial for President Kennedy within the District of Columbia, and precludes other names, plaques, or other citations. This is just one more example of Trump satisfying his ego by sticking his name where it does not belong. And doing so in defiance of the law.
This is one more item that will find its way into the courts. Or be reversed if and when the people in power are changed by the voters. Hint, hint. Or we can let Kerry Kennedy, niece of John F. Kennedy, and daughter of Robert F. Kennedy (the senior one), take care of it.
A footnote…. The TV ratings for the Kennedy Center Honors program Trump hosted were down 35% compared to last year’s ratings. That is the program’s lowest rating ever.
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.
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.
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