Donald Trump and maga Republicans talk the talk but failed administration's fuel and energy policies are a mess!

 A New Year’s resolution for Donald Trump: Stop🛑 ❗hurting Texas oil producers | Editorial published by the Houston Chronicle editorial board:  

If you tuned in to Donald Trump’s "yelling fest", he called it his "address to the nation" on Wednesday night highlighting his economic policies, you may have noticed a significant omission: nary a mention of oil and gas production. 

(The date of the Donald Trump address to the nation during which he was noted for yelling was December 17, 2025.)

Yes, Donald Trump, is the same president who promised during his re-election campaign to make the U.S. rich by drilling for “liquid gold”, but he could only muster a brief, tepid and inaccurate boast about his energy policy in the first year of his second term. 

Rather, he highlighted growth in power generation — though much of that came from wind and solar projects subsidized by federal programs, and Trump just slashed these funds — and claimed raises for coal miners. And prices at the gas pump continue to fall “now under 💲2.50 a gallon in much of the country,” he said.

But, what Trump didn’t mention is that the cheap gasoline is largely a result of the lowest crude oil prices in four years: 💲56 a barrel for West Texas Intermediate, according to recent data, a 20% decline from last year.

Texas’ flagship industry was already having a brutal year before the latest drop in oil prices. Tariffs left many companies, including majors, reeling. Thousands of workers have been laid off. 

With many expecting the pain to continue into the first quarter of next year, it's high time that Texas’ political leaders start pushing back against Trump’s incoherent and damaging energy policy.

For a time, it seemed oil and gas executives had already reached that breaking point. Some were openly critical of Trump and his advisers for cheering on oil prices as low as 💲50 a barrel and imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum that hiked the cost of drilling. These folks aren’t California environmentalists. They supported and bankrolled Donald Trump's re-election. Trump’s peeling back of environmental regulations and doling out billions in tax breaks could pay off for them in the long run, but right now they’re getting a lousy return on their investment.

Even so, the Big Oil C-suite hasn’t yet raided the Oval Office with pitchforks. Instead, there appears to be a numbing acceptance in the industry that the sluggish market will persist,😞  at least through the beginning of next year. The latest Dallas Fed survey of oil and gas firms in Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico struck a😒 pessimistic tone on the short-term outlook. If there’s a silver lining on the horizon for producers, it’s that global liquefied natural gas prices are perking up, positioning the U.S. to be a major player in that market.

“The supply-demand issues for natural gas are finally heading into a bull phase,” wrote one Fed survey participant from an exploration and production firm. “The administration’s trade policy is forcing balancing and many countries have to buy LNG to offset their trade deficits with America.”

This editorial board has supported LNG exports alongside sensible regulations that curtail methane leaks and protect fence-line communities. When done right, LNG can benefit our economy and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in countries that burn coal.

Kirk Edwards, the CEO of Latigo Petroleum, an Odessa-based oil and gas production company, told the Houston Chronicle's editorial board that the explosion of data centers and AI companies in Texas also bodes well for natural gas production.

“The only way to get that sustainable power is going to be through natural gas turbine-driven electricity,” Edwards said.

Of course, that would be a lot easier if Trump eased up on tariffs. There are more than 100 new natural gas plants planned to go online by 2030, but tariffs on materials used to build the plants, combined with supply chain shortages, are jacking up the costs of construction. It’s also an open question whether the glut of future data center projects in the ERCOT interconnection queue will actually be built, adding to the uncertainty for natural gas developers.

While the spike in natural gas prices eases the pain for the industry, it’s hurting consumers’ bank accounts. (Yes❗💢) Americans paid $12 billion more for natural gas this year, owing to a 22% increase in LNG exports. The European Union’s recent decision to ban LNG imports from Russia next year because of the ongoing war in Ukraine, could boost U.S. exports – and our utility bills – even higher.

In fact, the Donald Trump administration's fixation on driving down the price of oil, while waging a trade war, simply isn’t sustainable. 

If there’s a New Year’s resolution we’d recommend for Trump when it comes to energy, it’s to do everything within his power to restore some semblance of balance to the market.

Oil and gas executives still want to believe in Trump. But, nevertheless, the instability and lack of policy discipline that has defined his presidency is trying their patience. And even worse, it’s undermining the workers.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans made campaign promises but GOP policies failed to help middle class voters

As usual when Donald Trump occupies the White House, in 2025, he condensed a decade's worth of political upheaval into a single year.

Opinion published in the Charlotte Observer, news in North Carolina, by Ronald Brownstein for Bloomberg opinion.

Brownstein: "2025 turned Trump's biggest strength against him."

Identifying the most important of those developments is like picking through the wreckage to find a few family heirlooms after a tornado has torn through the neighborhood. But, in the swarm of conflicts, controversies, personnel changes, policy reversals, legal battles, feuds and shifting alliances, several dynamics emerged this year that are most likely to shape the electoral landscape in 2026, 2028 and beyond.

Of those key developments, the most significant was the collapse of faith in Trump's ability to manage the economy. In virtually every survey during Trump's first term, more people approved than disapproved of his handling of the economy. Moreover, his approval rating on the economy almost always exceeded his overall job performance rating, which meant that confidence in his economic agenda was a floor bolstering his support no matter which other controversies engulfed him. 

Now, guess what❓ That equation is reversed. Recent surveys routinely show that fewer people approve of Trump's management of the economy than at any point during his first four years; most national surveys this month have shown that 40% or fewer Americans give him positive marks on the economy, and even fewer give him good grades on the cost of living - the problem that tops every survey as Americans' biggest concern. It's a complete inversion from his first term: The economy is now dragging down overall assessments of his performance.

To some extent, Trump is simply suffering from proximity: presidents' approval ratings always sag when voters are unhappy with the economy, as they are today. (Like other presidents, he's found that efforts to blame his predecessor for current conditions fall flat after a few months.) But Trump's problems extend beyond that. 

Opinion polls consistently find that most Americans believe he has not focused enough on their 💲cost of living. Even more damaging, more voters say his agenda has hurt than helped their finances, often by a crushing margin of two or three to one. Voters particularly dislike his tariffs❗

The bottom line: Trump's greatest asset during his first term - confidence in his economic mastery - has become his biggest albatross in his second. "Unless there's a fix to inflation … I think the economy is going to continue to drag him down," says Democratic pollster Jay Campbell, part of the bipartisan polling team that surveys attitudes about the economy and politics for CNBC. The crumbling of confidence in Trump's economic performance largely explains 2025's second key electoral dynamic: the reversal of the president's beachheads among the new voter groups central to his reelection. In 2024, Trump notably improved his previous performance among several big constituencies-Latino young men and non-White voters without a college degree. Republican strategists dreamed of realignment.

But, Trump's standing with those groups rapidly deteriorated. Recent surveys that extensively examined attitudes among Latinos and young people, both with much larger samples than typical public polls, found his approval rating with each group has plummeted below 30%.❗ Frustration over the economy explains much, but not all, of that decline. In the Pew Research Center's massive recent Latino survey, for instance, more than 7 in 10 said the administration is doing too much to deport immigrants; nearly 8 in 10 said his overall agenda was hurting the Latino community. (Even a third of his 2024 Latino voters said his policies were harming the community.) Former Republican Representative Carlos Curbelo, who represented a heavily Latino South Florida district, told me that Trump "had a lot of rope" with Latinos, but has squandered that opportunity with his militarized deportation offensive. "They have gone way too far," Curbelo added. "It's going to be hard for Republicans to recover some of this support." Which brings us to the third important development of 2025: In the normal hydraulic fashion of American politics, Trump's fall allowed Democrats to run well in this year's major elections. But the Democratic Party's overall public image also remains weak- but, not when voters are asked to put a generic candidate to run against any given Republican.

That may not matter much next year, because midterm elections are predominantly a referendum on the incumbent president's performance. But "in 2028, the question of who we nominate matters enormously," says Simon Bazelon, an adviser at Welcome, a new centrist Democratic group. Even if Democrats win "a referendum on Trump's unpopularity in 2026," he adds, it would be a mistake to conclude "voters are happy with us again, when in fact they may still be angry at us." The heated argument between progressives and centrists over the party's direction will play out next year in Senate primaries in Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa and Texas among other places. But, of course, the real battle will come in the 2028, presidential primary. And, indeed, that race may turn less on ideology than on disposition - who Democratic voters believe is the candidate most committed to fight, and most likely to beat, Trump's Make America Great Again -- maga cult ❗- movement. 

At home and abroad, Trump is governing as if he feels himself completely unbound. But while other Republican officials, with the rarest exceptions, have bowed to his excesses, he's provoked a clear recoil among voters beyond his core coalition. In that way, 2025, reaffirmed the most important political trend over roughly the past 60 years. The rapid erosion of Trump's 2024, breakthroughs underscored that we continue to live through the longest period in American history when neither party has been able to establish a durable advantage over the other.

In fact, the last five times a U.S. president has gone into a midterm election with unified control of the federal government (the White House, House and Senate), the voters have revoked it - the longest such streak in American history. Nothing that happened in 2025, suggests Trump can stop that wheel from turning again in 2026.

Maine Governor Janet Mills action to prevent local and state law enforcement from assisting mass deportations

 https://mailchi.mp/ff411d23f1fc/topsham-local-scoop-6426902?e=9cbe492604

Governor Mills Will Not Veto LD 1971, Preventing Local and State Law Enforcement from Becoming Tools in the Mass Deportation Effort. Reported by Topsham Maine Democrats.

Maine: LD 1971 will limit state, county, and local law enforcement from assisting in immigration enforcement – enforcement that is now violating basic legal and human rights. 

An Act to Protect Workers in This State by Clarifying the Relationship of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies with Federal Immigration Authorities- voted ought to pass as amended. Check details on Maine.gov at this link here. 

After passage, the Governor held the bill, considering whether to veto it or allow it to become law without her signature at the start of the January session. 

On December 15, Governor Mills announced that she would let it become law, effective in 90 days. Law enforcement agencies opposed the bill, having long cooperated with ICE and Border Patrol. But LD 1971 does not prohibit law enforcement from working with federal agencies to solve serious crimes, nor does it prevent compliance with federal law or judicial warrants. 

What it does prohibit are immigration enforcement favors for ICE: holding people beyond their lawful release time, questioning individuals about immigration status, calling ICE or Border Patrol based on immigration suspicions, bringing Border Patrol to routine traffic stops, or sharing nonpublic information about a person’s whereabouts.

Governor Janet Mills

.....recognized, that while cordial relationships between Maine law enforcement and federal immigration agents may be good on many matters, the immigration system that ICE and Border Patrol supports no longer respects due process or human rights. Instead, they support the sweeping incarceration and removal of mostly ordinary people who are not dangerous, many of whom were playing by rules – rules that are suddenly up-ended. History will likely judge this as harshly as the roundup and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

The damning evidence is extensive. 

• The large mass transit and detention system supporting mass deportation has been constructed, often severing access to lawyers, family, and medical care.
• Trump has sent the national guard as a show of force to Democratic controlled cities to back up his mass deportation efforts. Even the Republican Supreme Court has, initially, stayed this outreach.
• The Trump administration has willy-nilly reclassified 675,000 legal immigrants as undocumented by arbitrarily revoking their lawful status.
• Parole (permission to be in the country) has been revoked for hundreds of thousands of others who are here on humanitarian grounds and for others trying to unite with citizen family members.
• Expedited removal (deportation without a hearing) has been dramatically expanded beyond the immediacy of the border to the whole country for those who have not been here continuously for at least two years.

Some who appear in court for a due process hearing are arrested and deported without a hearing after their cases are arbitrarily dismissed. This makes others afraid to appear in court as required to maintain their legal status.

People, regardless of how long they have lived here, arrested on suspicion of crossing the border other than at a port of entry (a misdemeanor) are illegally imprisoned without bond hearings, where they could be released while they await their immigration cases.
Asylum applications have been halted regardless of merit.
Immigration judges are being undermined and reduced to pro-deportation rubber stamps.

People are being told to go to third countries as a tactic to block legitimate asylum claims.

The Trump Administration used third countries as places of torture or sent people to dangerous war-torn areas.

At least 170 citizens, including 20 children, have been swept up and detained, sometimes brutally, in ICE and border patrol’s violent show of force.

Governor Mills was right to let LD 1971 become law. Maine’s law enforcement must not be complicit in sending people into this unconstitutional human rights catastrophe. We hope law enforcement will comply with the spirit and letter of the law and agree that this is not something Maine should be assisting with. Rather, let's show support and humanity to those being oppressed.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans The Epstein Files, obviously covering up to protect guilty men who supported child sexual abuse

 Echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times by LZ Granderson

What Epstein ‘hoax’❓The facts are bad enough: 
"The victims are real. The flight logs are real. The millions that flowed into Epstein’s bank account have wire transfer confirmation numbers that can be traced."

Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Noam Chomsky and Woody Allen were among the familiar faces in the latest batch of photographs released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee in connection to the late Jeffrey Epstein. 

With the Justice Department preparing to make additional files public, the images underscore an uncomfortable truth for us all: The convicted sex offender moved comfortably among some of the most intelligent men in the world. Rhodes scholars, technology leaders and artists.

Also in the release was a photograph of a woman’s lower leg and foot on what appears to be a bed, with a paperback copy of Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” visible in the background. The 1955 novel centers on a middle-aged man’s sexual obsession with a 12-year-old girl. Epstein, a serial sexual abuser, famously nicknamed one of his private planes “The Lolita Express.” And we are to believe that some of the globe’s brightest minds could not put the dots together❓

Donald Trump, who once described himself as “a very stable genius,” is included in thousands of references.

“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Later, according to Donald Trump, the two men had a public falling out. Of course, Trump repeatedly has denied any wrongdoing. 

Okay, great. 🙄But, denial after the fact is only one side of this story. The other is harder to digest: Either the self-proclaimed “very stable genius” spent nearly two decades around Epstein without recognizing what was happening in plain sight ❓— or he recognized it and chose silence. Neither explanation reflects on intelligence as much as it does on (pornographic❗) character. No wonder Trump’s defenders keep raising the most overused word in American politics today: hoax.

“Once again, House Democrats are selectively releasing photos with random redactions to try and create a false narrative,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson. “Here’s the reality: Democrats like Stacey Plaskett and Hakeem Jeffries were soliciting money and meetings from Epstein after he was a convicted sex offender. The Democrat hoax 🤥against Donald Trump has been repeatedly debunked, and the Trump administration has done more for Epstein’s victims than Democrats ever have by repeatedly calling for transparency, releasing thousands of pages of documents and calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends.”

Although Democrats were picking which photos to release, and even if many of the men pictured were aligned with progressives. That includes Donald Trump when he was a Democrat while he and pal Epstein were running together in New York in the 2000s. Trump didn’t register as a Republican until 2009. 

Now whether the choice of photos and timing was designed to shield political friends or weaponize against perceived enemies isn’t clear. What is clear is that it doesn’t take a genius to see that none of this is a hoax. 

No hoax!

The victims are real. The flight logs are real. The millions that flowed into Epstein’s bank account have wire transfer confirmation numbers that can be traced. What Democrats are doing with the information is politics as usual. And you don’t want politics to dictate who gets justice and who gets vilified.

Whatever the politicians’ intentions, Americans can decide how to react to the disclosures. And what the men around Epstein did with the information they gathered on his jet or his island fits squarely at the heart of the national conversation about masculinity. What kind of men could allow such abuse to continue?

I’m not saying the intelligent men in Epstein’s ecosystem did something criminal, but the lack of whistleblowing before his arrest raises questions about their fortitude for right and wrong. 

And the Trump White House trying to characterize this conversation as a partisan witch hunt — a hoax — is an ineffective strategy because the pattern with their use of that word is so clear.

We saw what happened on January 6, and Trump tells us the investigation is a hoax. We hear the recording of him pressuring Georgia officials to find votes, and he tells us the investigation is a hoax. Trump campaigned on affordability issues — the cost of bacon, no taxes on tips — but now that he’s in office such talk is a hoax by Democrats. As if we don’t know the price of groceries in real time. Ten years ago, Trump told us he had proof that President Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. We’re still waiting.

In his (Fake❗)book, “Art of the Deal,”* Trump framed his lies as “truthful hyperbole” but by now we should understand for him hyperbole matters more than truth — and his felony convictions confirm that some of his claims were indeed simply false.

So if there is a hoax, it is the notion that none of the brilliant men whom Epstein kept in his orbit had any idea what was going on.

*The ghostwriter for Donald Trump's 1987, book, The Art of the Deal, was journalist and author Tony Schwartz, who spent 18 months crafting the book, but he later expressed deep regret, feeling he helped create a myth around Trump that wasn't accurate, calling himself a "pig lipstick" creator and later wishing the book was titled The Sociopath. Schwartz said he feels remorse for contributing to Trump's public persona, which he now sees as dangerous.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans will experience the voter impact of negative Trumpzism in 2026 elections

Trump Started 2025 Strong, Then His Approval Rating Crashed

Echo published in The Intelligencer by Ed Kilgore:

Donald Trump’s (🤥as usual) false ❗claims 🙄😡about💢 a landslide victory and a huge mandate in 2024, were always ridiculous. Nevertheless he began his second term with some of the highest job-approval ratings he’s ever had as president. 

Yet, per Gallup polling, he never hit 50 percent job approval during his first term, but Silver Bulletin’s refined polling averages showed him at 51.6 percent the day after his second inauguration. 

With a disapproval rating of 40 percent, that gave him a double-digit positive net approval rating of 11.6 percent. His net approval stayed positive until early March, going underwater on March 12, and staying there for the rest of the year.

Trump’s poll numbers took a big plunge in April around the time he imposed his “Liberation Day” tariffs. 

Although it recovered modestly through June, his poll numbers then began a steady decline, that dipped to terrible around Thanksgiving, when his net approval hit minus-15 percent (41.2 percent approval, 56.2 percent disapproval). He has seen a slight improvement in the month since, but as of December 23, Trump's job-approval average at Silver Bulletin stands at 42.1 percent with disapproval at 54.3 percent.

At this point in 2017, during Trump’s first term, Gallup had his job approval at 36 percent, precisely where Gallup shows him today. 

On this date in 2021, Joe Biden’s job-approval rating per Gallup was at 43 percent. In fact, the only post–World War II president to match Trump’s current poor job approval at this point in his presidency was Trump, in his first term.

Obviously, Trump has always had a polarizing effect on Americans. But Silver Bulletin’s tracking of strong approval versus strong disapproval shows the latter consistently ahead in much of 2025, matching the general erosion of Trump’s popularity. 

At present, 25.2 percent of Americans strongly approve of his job performance, and 44.1 percent strongly disapprove.

Since June, Trump has been underwater in assessments of his job performance on all four major issues tracked by Silver Bulletin’s polling averages. His net approval is currently at minus-8.3 percent on immigration, minus-20.5 percent on trade, minus-21.3 percent on the economy, and minus-28.8 percent on inflation.

Unsurprisingly, specific polling outlets have different takes on Trump’s popularity. But overall, the downward 2025, trend shows up nearly everywhere. 

Rasmussen Reports (long a Trump favorite) has a daily tracking of presidential job approval that showed his net approval as positive or roughly neutral for two-thirds of the year with a decided downward swing in autumn. As of December 23, Rasmussen has the president’s job approval at 44 percent positive and 54 percent negative. Raz also measures strong approval versus strong disapproval, currently placing the former at 29 percent and the latter at 44 percent. Perhaps a more alarming trend is evident in the highly reputed AtlasIntel findings, which had Trump’s net job approval at minus-5 percent as recently as September but shows him at minus-20 percent in mid-December. One traditionally pro-GOP pollster, InsiderAdvantage, has shown Trump’s net job approval as positive all year long. More typical has been Fox (Fake❗ ) News, which placed the president’s net job approval at single-digit negative levels for most of 2025, but then showed it lurching downward to minus-17 percent in mid-November and minus-12 percent in mid-December.

Tracking presidential job approval by party affiliation is a bit difficult due to differences in ways of determining such affiliation. 

Yet,  Gallup’s monthly polling is typical in showing Trump only modestly losing ground with self-identified Republicans over 2025. He was at 91 percent during Inauguration Week and still at 89 percent in December, though there was a dip to 84 percent in November. But, among self-identified independents, Trump’s approval rating was at 46 percent during Inauguration Week and is at 25 percent in December.

How will Trump’s loss of popularity affect the 2026, midterm elections❓ It won’t help, obviously, if he continues to lose ground. Gallup showed his 2018, job-approval rating at 39 percent in January and 40 percent in November, when his party lost 41 House seats. But the usual low-turnout midterm electorate is slightly less aligned with overall public opinion than the high-turnout presidential electorate. Another factor is that, while Trump has been and remains unpopular, the Democratic Party’s approval ratings aren’t great either (though typically midterms are referenda on the president’s party more than choices between competing parties).

The polling number that most corresponds to midterm vote intentions is the so-called generic congressional ballot, which simply asks respondents which party they want to control the U.S. House of Representatives. According to RealClearPolitics’ polling averages, Democrats currently lead on the generic ballot by 3.7 percent. Decision Desk HQ’s averages put the Democratic advantage at 5.3 percent. The two parties were very nearly tied on the generic ballot prior to the 2024 election, in which Republicans eked out the fragile House majority they still have today.

Of course, unexpected things could happen between now and November 2026 ,that might change the currently strong odds that Democrats will at least flip the House and make gains in the Senate. With gerrymandering still underway, we don’t even know exactly what the landscape will look like. It is reasonable to presume that Trump is more likely to be a drag on his party than a boon, based on everything we know about the negative public attitudes toward him over time. Donald Trump is obviously just not a very popular politician, and those who love him fiercely get only one vote.

Donald Trump is seriously challenged by arithmetic! His false claims about reducing prices are mathematically impossible

Published in the Los Angeles Times and Yahoo.com

Echo letter to the editor: In the 1954 book "How to Lie With Statistics" 

by Darrell Huff, the book's author explains how graphs, samples, averages and other data can be used to mislead readers. 

Business columnist Michael Hiltzik's many examples show us how Donald Trump uses numbers as "rhetorical objects" (“Here’s how Trump gets away with using dubious ❓numbers, 🤥” Dec. 19. IOW- More lies❗). The bigger the numbers, the more overwhelmed are the people trying to digest them.

One thing in Hiltzik's piece that drew my attention was Trump's claim that he “slashed prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400, 500 and even 600 percent.” Perhaps I am missing something, but if you slash a price by only 100%, doesn't that bring it down to $0? Forget 400% or more. That's mathematically impossible. 

As a matter of fact, I tried some mathematical trickery while I was volunteering to help fourth graders with math. I told them I deserved to have my pay doubled. They laughed. Even the kids knew it would still be $0.  Haha!

From Jerry Lasnik, in Thousand Oaks,California

Donald Trump and maga Republicans have a model for immigration reform but refuse to be create humane changes

Stop treating Houston immigrant families like criminals | Opinion
Echo opinion letter published in the Houston Chronicle

Immigration inequity:  Regarding “He is a handyman, not a criminal. Houston must face our immigration reality. | Editorial,” (Dec. 16)- a very sad 😟 report: This story highlights the inequities of current immigration enforcement — inequities most Americans already recognize as wrong. Houston Chronicle captured the issue perfectly when quoting the ICE spokesman: “ICE is targeting the worst of the worst criminal aliens, but all individuals who are in the country illegally are subject to arrest and removal.”

That single sentence reduces the complexity of our broken system to a cruel reality: a caring father of U.S. citizens is treated no differently than the “worst of the worst.😟” 

Such indiscriminate enforcement does not make Houston safer; rather, it destabilizes our community. Luis is not a hardened criminal. For his family’s sake, and for the good of our city, he deserves a path to legal residency.

For decades, both political parties failed to deliver humane immigration reforms. Yet the solution is not new. The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, introduced nearly 20 years ago by Senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy, 

this bill passed in the Senate in 2006, with bipartisan support and the backing from President George W. Bush. 

Sadly, it was defeated in the House, dismissed as “amnesty.”

After twenty years of stalemate, perhaps the moment has finally arrived for leaders from both political sides to revive that legislation and work together, instead of tearing the country apart. 

If today’s misguided policies ultimately force lawmakers to act, then maybe something good can come from this failure.

From Derris Murphy, in Houston, Texas

Donald Trump and the three ghost of Christmas past, Christmas present and prophesy about the future

Are Donald Trump's evil deeds and illegal behaviors redeemable❓

The Columbus Dispatch

Trump could use three ghosts: An echo opinion published in The Columbus Dispatch. Indeed, the columnist Chris Brennan is correct — because Donald Trump can’t help himself.

But what ❓ if he could be helped❓ Wouldn’t it be wonderful for Trump to go to sleep one night, and then have visits from the three ghosts in Charles Dickens’ "A Christmas Carol”❓

Trump would see his (evil) past, where, to him, he gained so much, but actually had lost his soul through his dishonesty and his mistreatment of women, the poor, people of color and just about everyone who crossed his path.

Then he would witness his present, where his cruelty and vindictiveness continue to cause so many to suffer.

Finally, and most importantly, he would be shown his future❗, where he must endure the consequences of a lifetime of selfish, heartless and evil behaviors. 

As evil and uncaring as Ebenezer Scrooge may have been, Dickens portrayed him as redeemable. I doubt Dickens could do the same for Donald Trump. His conduct has shown him to be irredeemable, and it is unlikely he will be able to avoid the comeuppance for his heartlessly evil inhumanity.

Therefore, in my opinion, as mean and uncaring as Ebenezer Scrooge was, Dickens portrayed him as redeemable. But, I doubt Dickens could do the same for Donald Trump. 

In my opinion. Donald Trump's conduct has shown him to be irredeemable, and it is unlikely he will be able to avoid the comeuppance for his heartless inhumanity.

There will be no Tiny Tim at the end of this story proclaiming, “God Bless us, everyone. "

From Stephen Gladstone, in Cleveland Ohio.

Echo opinion published in The New York Times: America must decide- Will we be governed by fear or by compassion and justice?

 Fear and Uncertainty echo opinion letter published in The New York  Times: To the Editor:

Immigration enforcement in 2025, has expanded beyond border control into everyday American life. 

Raids in San Antonio; Charlotte, North Carolina.; and St. Paul, Minn., have disrupted families and communities, with children detained and schools targeted. The end of temporary protected status for Burmese migrants and canceled citizenship ceremonies deepen uncertainty for thousands.

While officials cite gang threats like Tren de Aragua, enforcement often criminalizes the innocent. 

Communities are responding with resilience. Faith groups, (i.e. Evangelical Christians❗) human rights activists and immigrant-owned businesses are standing firm.

This is not just policy — it’s a lived reality in classrooms, kitchens and courtrooms. America must decide: Will we be governed by fear, or by compassion and justice❓

From Brian Scott Angerer in Garland, Texas

Donald Trump and maga Republicans have completely failed to provide America's working class with health coverage

Echo letter to the editor of The New York Times:

Medicare for All is very popular. Even people who distrust government are in favor of it. It is a crime and a disgrace that our rich country does not provide Medicare for all of us. Every other wealthy country has figured out how to do this.

Unfortunately in the US the influence and political power of the for-profit corporate health insurance companies cancel out the movement for Medicare for All. (Maine Writer: All working Americans already pay in into Medicare. Makes perfect sense for all who pay for the benefit to receive access to the coverage.) 

Therefore many go without health insurance because they cannot afford it. They are one illness or injury away from bankruptcy due to medical debt.

When will we join every other wealthy country and provide health care for all? I fear that I, at 82 years old, will not live to see it.

From Elizabeth R. Rosenthal in Larchmont, N.Y.
The writer is a retired dermatologist.

Donald Trump and the maga Republicans must stop the unending indefensible cruelty against our nation's human dignity

The second Donald Trump administration has been unprecedented in myriad ways, perhaps above all in the way that he has managed to cajole, cow, or simply command people in his Administration to carry out even his most undemocratic wishes with remarkably little dissent. Some civil servants and senior officials, however, are experiencing bouts of conscience. 

In March, Erez Reuveni, a veteran Justice Department lawyer, was promoted to the position of acting deputy director of the Office of Immigration Litigation. 

He decided to personally take on the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had been wrongly sent back to El Salvador, in violation of a 2019, court order. On April 5th, Reuveni told his supervisor he would not sign an appeal brief that said Abrego Garcia was a “terrorist.” According to a whistle-blower complaint that Reuveni later filed, he said, “I didn’t sign up to lie.” He was suspended and then fired.

Other career prosecutors have chosen to step down. In February, when Trump officials moved to dismiss corruption charges against New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, it triggered resignations from Danielle R. Sassoon, the interim United States Attorney in Manhattan, and from Kevin O. Driscoll and John Keller, the two officials in charge of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section. In September, Erik Siebert, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, resigned, after his investigations into Letitia James and James Comey stalled and Trump demanded that he be fired.

There has been turnover in senior ranks of the military as well. In October, Admiral Alvin Holsey, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, abruptly announced that he would retire at the end of the year. Tensions had reportedly been mounting between Holsey and the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, particularly over the admiral’s concerns about the legality of drone strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean. Now military experts have raised the possibility of war crimes, as lawmakers investigate a drone operation on September 2nd that destroyed a boat and killed everyone on board.

The excesses of this corrupt Donald Trump Administration are escalating. A ProPublica investigation, published in late October, found that ICE had arrested more than a hundred and seventy American citizens, nearly twenty of whom were children. In November, after the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C., allegedly by an Afghan national, Trump suspended the issuance of visas for people travelling on an Afghan passport, halted the processing of all asylum claims, and vowed to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries.”

Anyone still serving in the Trump Administration must reckon with the reality that, when the government has previously perpetrated egregious miscarriages of justice, history has not been forgiving to those who’ve gone along, however reluctantly. 

Consider the incarceration of Japanese Americans during the Second World War. On the morning of December 7, 1941, when Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii, more than a hundred and twenty-five thousand people of Japanese ancestry lived in the continental United States, most of them on the West Coast. Nearly two-thirds were American citizens. Wild reports—later debunked—of lights signaling to Japanese vessels offshore proliferated. Public fears about a potential enemy attack from within began to spread, even as intelligence officials in Franklin Roosevelt’s Administration believed them to be baseless.

Lieutenant General John DeWitt was the head of the Army’s Western Defense Command. Driven by his own alarmism and his suspicions of members of the “Japanese race,” he began pushing for the removal of people of Japanese descent from the West Coast. The Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, a revered figure in Roosevelt’s Cabinet, initially had doubts about the legality of the plan, as did his deputy, John J. McCloy, though they ultimately supported it, as a matter of military necessity. But lawyers for the Justice Department, who bore responsibility for the handling of “alien enemies,” argued that a mass evacuation was unnecessary and likely unconstitutional.

The debate culminated in a tense meeting, on the evening of February 17, 1942, at the Georgetown home of the Attorney General, Francis Biddle, who had joined the Cabinet only a few months earlier. Edward J. Ennis, the head of the Justice Department’s “aliens” division, and James H. Rowe, the Assistant Attorney General, were forceful in their opposition to the plan. But Biddle, who had also been opposed, was noticeably reticent, Rowe later recalled. Then an Army official drew from his pocket a draft evacuation order, and Biddle revealed that he had dropped his objections to it. Ennis nearly wept.

Two days later, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066, which led to the U.S. government dispatching the entire Japanese American population of California, Oregon, and Washington to ten concentration camps, as Roosevelt initially termed them, in the interior of the country. (The final camp did not close until early 1946.) Justice Department lawyers went on to defend the policy in court and, most controversially, took steps to obscure from the Supreme Court reports that cast doubt on the military justification and showed that Japanese Americans were overwhelmingly loyal to the United States.

In the decades since, numerous historians, as well as members of a federal commission that, in 1981, held hearings across the country, have studied the path to the executive order. The circle of blame has included not just Army and War Department officials but Biddle, who chose to “surrender,” as the historian Peter Irons put it, in his book “Justice at War.” Biddle admitted in his memoirs that, being “new to the Cabinet,” he was reluctant to challenge Stimson, “whose wisdom and integrity I greatly respected.” Irons also scrutinized Ennis’s decision to sign on to a misleading brief to the Supreme Court, observing that “institutional loyalty had prevailed over personal conscience.”

Standing firm on principle sometimes sits opposite other factors, such as fealty to colleagues and professional ambition, but it invariably comes from within. During the early days of the first Trump Administration, Sally Yates, who had been Obama’s Deputy Attorney General and had stayed on as the acting Attorney General, directed her staff not to defend an executive order from Trump restricting travel from several Muslim-majority countries—his so-called Muslim ban. Trump fired her. Several months later, Yates delivered a commencement-week speech to graduates of Harvard Law School, in which she talked about the need to hone the “compass that’s inside all of us.” 

Introspection about difficult decisions that involve conscience, she said, helps “develop a sense of who you are and what you stand for.” For those in the second Trump Administration, the time to answer those questions could be now. ♦

Published in the print edition of the December 22, 2025, issue, with the headline “Conscientious Objectors.”

Donald Trump credibiliity deficit!

Donald Trump's 2025 Christmas list: One HUGE Epstein files eraser |Echo Opinion published in USA Today*

As usual, I've been the very best boy this year. In fact, no boy has been better than me, and I've done more than anyone else on your list, many have told me that.

Through my numerous sources in the White House, of whom I have none, I’ve obtained an exclusive copy of Donald Trump’s letter to Santa Claus and accompanying Christmas wish list. I reprint it here because the holidays die in darkness.

Dear Santa,  As usual, I’ve been the very best boy this year. In fact, no boy has been better than me, and I’ve done more than anyone else on your list, many have told me that.

Whether it’s deporting people from sh-thole countries or bombing suspected drug boats or making sure everyone can say “Merry Christmas” again, everything I’ve done has been good.

EchoEchoActually, everything has been great. Everything I’ve done is great, and I’m great, so I deserve all the things on my list this year, and if I don’t get them, I have to tell you, Santa, you’re not going to like what happens. Our warriors in the U.S. military are not afraid of elves, and I’ve been hearing a lot about problems at the North Pole that might need to be fixed with a missile or two, if you know what I I am talking about.

There could also be tariffs. I love tariffs.

That said, here are the things I WILL get for Christmas, to be delivered no later than Christmas morning at the fabulous and successful Mar-a-Lago resort.

Rename the North Pole❓🙄❗


Given all I’ve accomplished in such a short time this year, nobody has ever accomplished more, 🤥 believe I fully deserve more recognition, so I’d like the North Pole to be renamed the Trump Pole, effective immediately. 

Okay, so you can keep the name “Santa Claus,” but I’ll be putting Elon Musk in charge of your workshop, and all children will know their gifts come from the Trump Pole. 

As you know, I’m building the greatest golden ballroom anyone has ever seen on the site of the old and dumb East Wing of the White House. But the other day, I realized there is another wing on the West side of the White House.  I call it “the West Wing,” a name I totally came up with, and nobody had ever heard before. That West Wing can and should be torn down to make room for more ballroom, so I’d like an unbelievably nice second ballroom, preferably with even more gold stuff on it.  

By the way, Santa Claus, I’m almost out of the JD Vance repellent, remember, you brought it to me last year, so I’d definitely like a refill, as that bearded weirdo keeps trying to stand around me while I’m doing amazing things. The stuff that smells like a locker he was once stuffed into seems to work the best to move him away from me‒ it really sends him running. Please make sure the bottle is gold.

While accomplishing more than any president in history🙄 🤥, I’ve been having trouble staying awake during meetings and Oval Office announcements that feature other people speaking. 

Therefore, anything that doesn’t directly involve me being praised for my greatness is BORING, and that means it’s snoozy time. So please get me some of those glasses that have open eyes painted on them.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

*Large numbers of USA Today readers said that Donald Trump gets a pass on too many of the bizarre things he utters, including statements that are provably untrue, like a mathematically impossible 1,000% reduction in prescription drug prices. Other readers said market numbers often cited don't reflect the day-to-day struggle you're feeling to buy groceries and pay bills.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must show compassion for those who are deliberately being victimized without cause

I agree with much in Colin Pascal’s Dec. 22, 2025, commentary, “Why the White House Faith Office is failing.*” (See the essay below this opinion letter.)

However, what is really needed is the “White House Compassion Office.”

Religious faith, as Mr. Pascal points out, does not guarantee adherence to a moral life or prevent shameful behavior. 

"'Do Unto Others', officially titled The Golden Rule, is a famous 1961, painting for The Saturday Evening Post showing diverse people of different races, religions and cultures united by the principle of treating others as you wish to be treated. The painting reflects Rockwell's desire for world unity."

Many people who practice non-Christian religions, or who profess no religious affiliation or no belief in a divinity, practice moral lives because of a belief not in an afterlife, but in the Golden Rule and a conviction that what we do to lift up one of us lifts up all of us. I do not want to live in a “Christian” nation, but rather in a tolerant, compassionate nation that recognizes that all who choose to live here possess inalienable rights that need to be respected and protected.

From Anne O’Hare, in Baltimore, Maryland

*Donald Trump’s White House Faith Office was established earlier this year (2025) and is a welcome addition to a Washington bureaucracy that sometimes seems hostile to religion.

Actually, the office seeks to ensure that faith leaders have a voice in policy and that religious organizations are treated fairly by the government. Despite its establishment, the office is failing to halt the widespread decline of religious faith in America. A Gallup poll recently found that less than half of Americans now identify as religious. The administration’s own behavior is partly to blame.

The history of religion in political life is complicated, and faith in America hasn’t always been a pure force for good. At St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in Annapolis, where I worship on Sundays and serve on the vestry, we take pride in the work of

William Wilberforce (b.1759-d.1883), a 19th-century English parliamentarian who shared our Anglican tradition.

Wilberforce was largely responsible for ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade, an immense service to humanity that was inspired by his Christian faith. His work is part of our church’s proud legacy of service, but there are shameful parts of our history as well. Two plaques, one on the interior and one on the exterior of our church, commemorate the African-American slaves who played a part in constructing the building in which we worship. The plaques also acknowledge that two Episcopal churches founded in Annapolis by St. Anne’s, St. Luke’s and St. Philips, only exist because an earlier generation of St. Anne’s parishioners wouldn’t share their sanctuary with African Americans. Given this history, it’s clear that the American church too often condoned the immoral. For all its modern and historical failures, however, religion remains a force for good.

Faith holds at bay the arrogance and self-importance that now define our cultural and political life. It reminds us that regardless of our position or title, we remain nothing more than a small part of God’s immense creation. By showing us our proper place in the world, faith, when well-practiced, encourages humility and dampens our judgment since each of us is flawed when compared to God’s perfection. Like everything good in the world, faith can be co-opted and has a downside, at times creating its own type of arrogance and exclusion. Acknowledging this isn’t a reason to push faith out of public life, and in general, faith does more than anything to keep us grounded.

If faith at its best encourages introspection, humility and compassion, then the White House Faith Office is failing. Too many of our leaders don’t seem to recognize that being seen as tough doesn’t mean dehumanizing people or being cruel. Attacking boats suspected of smuggling drugs may be justified to protect the lives of Americans, but there’s no way to justify making light of the associated killing. America used to honor the image of the reluctant warrior, seeing in the depiction of a fighter who wishes fighting wasn’t necessary something good in our national character. The (evil) playful way the administration appproaches these boat strikes feels distant from that older ideal.

Americans have always been ready to do hard and unpleasant things, but the willingness to do what’s necessary is a far cry from celebrating violence. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth strayed from the image of the reluctant warrior when he co-opted an ugly children’s book about Franklin the Turtle and posted an image of the main character shooting boats and smiling as they burned. If it were operating effectively the White House Faith Office would help the secretary understand that the people on these boats were made in God’s image and have a soul. Their bad decisions, perhaps informed by desperation, might make them legitimate targets, but taking their lives should always be a somber affair.

Secretary Hegseth isn’t the only figure in the administration whose behavior is difficult to square with traditional ideas of faith. President Donald Trump’s reaction to the murder of Rob and Michele Reiner, denigrating their memory and critiquing their politics, is a far cry from loving his enemies and reflecting God’s grace. The president’s embrace of concepts that don’t sit well with faith, promising his supporters that he would be their retribution and saying at Charlie Kirk’s funeral that he hates his opponents, is far removed from the lessons that many Americans learned in Sunday school. 

Although Donald Trump attempted to do something good when he established the White House Faith Office, his actions since he created it undermines its purpose. Moreover, hypocritically, Trump makes its existence mostly meaningless.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s decision in March to post a video of herself in front of half-naked men in an overcrowded prison was a sad example of using people as props. Many of the prisoners in El Salvador’s Terrorist Confinement Center are criminals who terrorized their neighbors and don’t deserve to be free. Their crimes, however, don’t lessen the tragedy of their situation, or the heartbreaking reality that these people, gifted by God with a soul, fell so far and did so much harm that they need to be incarcerated.

When leaders who claim to want a bigger role for religion in public life speak comfortably about retribution and hate, when they use a children’s cartoon character to make light of killing, and when they use prisoners as the backdrop for social media, something seems off in their understanding of faith. Keeping Americans safe may sometimes require the measured use of violence, and holding people in prison is a sad but necessary manifestation of the human condition. From immigration enforcement to counterdrug operations, key members of the administration seem to be enjoying themselves. Given the gravity of the topics and the effect of their actions on human lives, that reaction feels wrong.


The White House Faith Office exists in part to increase the role of religion in American life. That’s a controversial objective that might find more support if Americans could see the positive impact that faith can have on our public life. Until the Faith Office generates the influence and the will to change the administration’s rhetoric and aspects of its behavior, it won’t be taken seriously by an increasingly secular public that’s already skeptical of religion. Contrary to the views expressed by members of the current administration, many people of faith don’t believe that God blessed our nation only to see it turn its back on the world and deny the humanity that exists in everyone, humanity put there by God’s design.

Colin Pascal (colinjpascal@outlook.com) is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a graduate student in the School of Public Affairs at American University. He lives in Annapolis.