Rather than waste time on another impeachment, IMO Democrats must demand for Donald Trump to resign

Fight authoritarianism❗

Echo opinion letter published in the Orlando Sentinel news

Incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) said: “House Democrats are in the fight to bring government back from the brink of authoritarianism. We will shine a light on Donald Trump’s quid pro quo, coin-operated, pay-to-play corruption and renew American government as an instrument for the common good.”

Jamin Ben "Jamie" Raskin is an American attorney, law professor, and politician serving as U.S. representative for Maryland's 8th congressional district since 2017. A progressive member of the Democratic Party, he served in the Maryland State Senate from 2007 to 2016.

Mr. Raskin’s comment is clearly in line with voters’ intentions. The Iran War and the economy were undoubtedly top of mind at the ballot box, but at its core, this election was about reclaiming our democratic institutions from the grasp of an aspiring autocrat. The single most important issue for Democratic voters, according to the Fox News Voter Poll, was the state of democracy.

Raskin’s commitment to “shine the light” must include impeachment, despite warnings from some Democrats that impeachment would consume the oxygen in Washington. 

Some Democrats contend that impeaching Donald Trump for a third time would allow him to play the infamous political witch hunt card again, overshadowing the legislation they promised to deliver. Nonsense❗ Impeachment is a duty designed to protect democratic institutions. Failing to respond to Trump’s offenses effectively normalizes them, weakening the office of the presidency and the rule of law for all future administrations.

From: Jim Paladino, in Tampa, Florida

P.S. In my opinion, Democrats must expose and call out Donald Trump for his corruption and demand for him to resign. 

Donald Trump must stop appointing and advancing evil incompetent administration puppets like Stephen Miller

In my opinion Stephen Miller is proof of reincarnation because he is a doppelgänger for the Nazi Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945).

Echo opinion letter published in the Orlando Sentinel newspaper.

Donald Trump promoting the unpopular

Donald Trump fired his chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Wiles, a Floridian, was seen as largely responsible for Trump’s election in 2024. It’s probably just a coincidence that when Trump looks for somebody to fire, it’s often a woman, right❓

Proving that he has lost touch with the electorate, Trump elevated Stephen Miller to the post of chief of staff. Miller seems to be almost universally despised, and in my view he appeals only to the very far (evil) right extreme of MAGA. His cruel and heavy-handed approach to immigration enforcement flipped an issue that was 80/20 in Trump’s favor to 20/80 — in just two years.

I think the only other person so universally loathed in Trump’s orbit may be Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (fascist❗). Perhaps it’s time to promote him also. Or maybe Hegseth will be the next U.S. Senator from Tennessee, which has also been widely rumored.🤢

Trump claims that the overwhelming Democratic victory in the midterms was because he wasn’t on the ballot and because of “poor candidate quality.“ The problem is, many of those “poor candidates“ were hand-picked by Trump.

From George Devitt, in Maitland, Florida

Maine medical professionals hand delivered a sign on letter to Senator Susan Collins asking her to oppose RFKjr. She voted for him anyway: Preventable Measles is killing children

Upstate New York child dies in state’s first measles death in 30 years
Echo reported published in the News Tribune by Colin Mixin

A child died of measles in upstate New York, marking the state's first measles-related death in 30 years, Governor Kathy Hochul announced Monday.  Measles is a preventable disease.

"I'm heartbroken to learn that a child in Lewis County has died from measles," Hochul said in a statement. "My heart goes out to their family and everyone who knew and loved them."

Hochul blamed the Trump administration for policies that undermine the public's faith in the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

"This is New York's first measles-related death in 30 years, a devastating reminder of what's at stake when Washington deliberately erodes decades of progress in protecting Americans from preventable diseases," Hochul said.

Earlier this month, Hochul declared a measles disaster amid a sharp rise of reported cases in rural areas of the state and the largest outbreak in more than three decades in neighboring Pennsylvania.

The executive order extends the pool of people who can administer measles vaccines to include paramedics, midwives and others, and allows nurses to join doctors in ordering testing. The state has more than 100 cases this year.

This year, the U.S. is experiencing its worst measles outbreak since 1991, with nearly 3,900 reported cases, according to the CDC. The number of cases this year in Pennsylvania has surpassed 1,000, state health officials said Monday.

Health officials say Pennsylvania's current outbreak started in April, west of Philadelphia. There have been 1,004 cases, including 198 hospitalizations and five deaths, state officials said.

The nation has seen eight reported measles-associated deaths in the past two years -- more than the combined total of reported deaths over the previous three decades.

Health experts attribute such outbreaks to low vaccination rates.

It's been decades since a U.S. state has seen an outbreak surpass 1,000 cases, stretching back to a multiyear outbreak in New York City in the early 1990s that infected more than 4,500 people.

Republicans have a responsibility to fix our democracy. GOP broke it and now they and MAGA own it. Fire Donald Trump

Congrats, America. You didn’t blow it.

In other words, it's time to abandon the Trumpism "Wayback Machine"

A reckoning is finally coming for the corruption and brutality of Trumpism. Echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times by Jill Lawrence

Lots of people have a story about election night 2016. (Maine Writer- Frankly, I have am still unable to get over the catastrophic consequences of electing a creature who did not win a majority of the popular vote but was able to add up the electoral college numbers for a victory against the intelligent and competent Mrs. Hillary Clinton. It is time to abolish the electoral college❗)

Jill Lawrence writes about her memory, as a center-left opinion journalist at a big national newspaper, she was pre-writing a joint column with a libertarian conservative colleague who couldn’t stand Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. We both expected her to win.

Late that evening, they realized to their shock that they would have to start all over and write a new piece. The headline: “Congrats America. You blew it.”

Back then, it was astonishing that America would elect someone like Trump. He was far from an unknown. And what we knew — from bigotry, misogyny and sexual assault allegations to bankrupting businesses, stiffing contractors and utter ignorance about government, policy and the values that Joe Biden would call “the soul of America” — was disqualifying. Or should have been.

This year the astonishment is that voters finally said, “Enough❗” So many that Democrats have not only won the House, they could end up with a hefty 259-176 majority. And their 54 seats in the 100-member Senate (including seven flips this week) could rise to 56 after the Mississippi and Alaska races are called.

Young people and minorities drove the backlash. In a national poll of people after they voted, Democrats won 64% of the Hispanic/Latino vote, compared with 54% in 2024. The party’s 73% share of voters under 30 was an even larger shift, up from 56% in 2024. And Trump loomed large in their decisions, with 61% of those under 30, 61% of Black voters and 52% of Hispanic voters saying opposition to Trump was one reason for their vote.

The economy and “the state of democracy” were voters’ top issues. Six in 10 people under age 45 said the cost of living was crucial to their vote, the highest “crucial” rating of any issue in any age group. The top crucial issue for all age groups, and the only one with an overall majority, was “government corruption.”

None of this should be surprising, given Trump’s outright racism, brutal deportation and detention regime, and overt pursuit of power, gifts, profits and quid pro quos, on top of his callousness toward those starting out in life or working hard just to stay afloat. His mistakes have been legion.

Yet consequences have been rare, which may be why it was a jolt to both parties this week when the Great Blue Wave (tsunami🌊❗) rolled ashore. The hopes of doom-scrolling Democrats have been crushed repeatedly as they (OK, we) waited for Trump-MAGA fever to break, for that magic tipping point to appear. And Republicans apparently thought that they could coast forever on Teflon Don’s bizarre but seemingly untouchable brand — that voters would never notice his selfish preoccupations and careless directives, or his zeal to stop progress and even reverse it.

Trump’s second term feels as if the whole country is trapped in a super-sized Wayback Machine: Capricious, price-hiking tariffs that recall the late 19th century Gilded Age, when oligarchs flourished and the working class struggled. TLC for coal and fossil fuels while knifing renewable energy projects. The return of preventable diseases amid a war on science, and millions of people losing insurance as a result of Dickensian health cuts.

All that plus the war Trump started against Iran, and the terrible candidates he endorsed and sometimes handpicked to run against an excellent crop of Democrats. This is in itself a statement about the two parties: The Democrats were a motley crew. Some were recruited by establishment figures and some drew belated backing after winning primaries. They are centrists, liberals, progressives and Democratic Socialists of America members. They are in their 20s and in their 70s, from farm country, huge cities and all points between.

And they are clear evidence that despite Trump’s best efforts to stamp out diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI is very much alive and making a big splash this week in the winner’s circle. There will be more than 100 Democratic women in the House next year, up from 12 when Nancy Pelosi arrived in 1987. The party has elected Black governors of Georgia and Wisconsin, Hispanic governors of California and Texas, Native American women as governor of New Mexico and senator from Minnesota. The Senate will have its first Democratic doctor since 1938, first gay man, first Muslim and first Paralympic gold medalist. And lest we forget, Florida will have a Black, Trump-aligned Republican governor.

None of this means that MAGA or Trumpism or Republicans are done for. I asked in early 2022, a year after the January 6 Capitol attack, if fissures within the still-roiling GOP would be the beginning of the end for Trumpism or the Republican Party. It is now the beginning of the end of Trump’s time in office. But what happens to him and the party he commandeered, and how this nation will handle its next chapter, is still unknowable — and as worrying as ever.

President Obama triggered a bit of a furor early Wednesday morning with a social post that said voters had chosen “a politics that brings people together rather than divides them, and leaders who offer concrete solutions to the challenges they face.” Forget it, commenters told him, we want trials and justice and accountability.

In fact, President Obama went on to say the job of Democrats while Trump remains in office is to “make changes wherever we have the power to do so, prevent further damage, and lay the groundwork for the future.” A reckoning is part of that groundwork. Future officeholders and government officials must know that there are consequences for violating our laws and Constitution, and Congress must pass safeguards to protect the country from future authoritarians and kleptocrats.

That said, Mr. Obama is not wrong to promote civility and problem-solving. We need solutions and investigations. Democrats are preparing to deliver both. That’s how you bring people together.

Jill Lawrence is a journalist and the author of “The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock.”

Donald Trump must resign❗

We the people accomplished what the Republican congress failed to do! Donald Trump must resign!

 For Donald Trump, the midterms delivered what Congress wouldn’t: accountability | Echo Editorial published in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Across the country — in red states and blue — voters backed Democrats in a blistering rebuke of Donald Trump’s cruel, divisive, and costly policies.

Thankfully, America's better angels won👼🏻  😇🌈— again.

Just when it seemed all hope was lost, the American people on Election Day 2026, rejected the hatred, fear, and division sown by Donald Trump over the past decade. 

Empathy, compassion, and shared national identity triumphed over chaos, corruption, cruelty, and incompetence.

Somewhere, Abraham Lincoln is smiling.

Trump pleaded with Americans to pretend he was on the ballot. And they did, bigly.

All across the country — in red states and blue — voters backed Democrats, who took control of the House, Senate, and multiple governors’ mansions, including Pennsylvania. Gov. Josh Shapiro and Democrats now apparently command Harrisburg.

The midterm election was a massive and complete rebuke of Trump and all his anger, hate, greed, and costly policies.

Despite relentless efforts by Donald Trump and his enablers to alter the election outcome — through mid-decade gerrymandering, legal threats, voter suppression, money-for-vote offers, and baseless and exhausting claims of voter fraud — Americans peacefully waited in line, quietly mailed in their ballots, and carried out their civic duty.

The result was a resounding denunciation of everything Trump has said and done over the past two years. Americans are tired and fed up with his war, pocket lining, tariffs, cruel and senseless immigration enforcement, wasteful and often illegal Washington construction projects, selling out of allies, attacks on science and research, and trampling of the rule of law.

In fact, the proof was in the ballot box.

Voter turnout was huge, underscoring the power of one person and one vote to make a difference.

Democrats won Senate races in deep-red states like Texas, South Carolina, Iowa, and Kansas, where they have not been competitive for decades. The romp is not over, as Senate races in Mississippi and Alaska remain up for grabs.

The results were historic, signaling Americans still appreciate the benefits of diversity over racism, misogyny, and hate. Abdul El-Sayed (D., Mich.) withstood vile attacks by Trump, JD Vance, and others to become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate, while Chris Pappas of New Hampshire became the first openly gay man elected to the Senate.

Meanwhile, Gina Hinojosa will be the first Latina governor in Texas and first Democrat to win that office since 1990. In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms beat billionaire Rick Jackson to become the first Black female governor in U.S. history. And Deb Haaland in New Mexico became the first Native American elected governor in the U.S.

The Democratic candidates were outspent in nearly every race, yet they overcame relentless attack ads filled with lies, fear, racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and hate.

Trump tried to energize his base with rallies in red states filled with profanity, antisemitic tropes, baseless threats of jihadists and communists, and a strange obsession with men’s physiques. But the MAGA magic dust was not enough to distract from $6-a-gallon diesel.

In the end, a parade of Trump-backed sycophants, phonies, hacks, and incompetents were thrown out of office or rejected, including Ken Paxton in Texas, Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio, Darline Graham in South Carolina, Susan Collins in Maine, and Scott Perry in Pennsylvania.

Many of the Republican losers backed Trump’s war, tariffs, and tax cuts for the rich that have resulted in higher prices, interest rates, and inflation. The GOP enablers shrugged as Trump enriched himself, his family, friends, and corporations while the president’s policies hurt farmers, senior citizens, minimum wage workers, and recent college graduates.

Democrats won by such wide margins in nearly every competitive race that Trump meekly said he would accept the results. Even for the man who cried election fraud almost daily and sicced the U.S. Department of Justice on election officials, the mandate from voters was too big to rig.

For one night at least, millions of voters beat billions of dollars. Billionaires, big corporations, and law firms that shamelessly cozied up to Trump endured a well-deserved shellacking. But the threat of oligarchs remains and must be confronted.

We the people trounced trillionaire Elon Musk, who poured nearly half a billion dollars of his highly government-aided fortune into backing losers in Texas and beyond. Musk remains a foreign and domestic policy danger, with the power to meddle in wars and elections while spreading his toxic hate and racist ideology on social media. Not to mention his destruction of government operations during his brief and failed tenure running the dubiously legal Department of Government Efficiency.

Democrats would be wise to use their newfound power to put a stop🛑 to the flood of money corrupting politics. Democrats must also focus on the needs of average voters and not special interests.

Voters have given Democrats a golden opportunity to remake the party, rebuild the country, and stop Trump’s madness and corruption.

Democrats must use their newfound power to work to lower prices, restore healthcare cuts, end the Iran war, regulate artificial intelligence, rein in data centers, release all of the Epstein files, tame the deficit, tax the ultra-rich, pass real immigration reform, invest in research, undo gerrymandering, back Ukraine, confront climate change, stop the deportation cruelty, and investigate Trump’s self-dealing.

The list is long, and the damage is great.  But the voters have spoken. They rejected the wannabe king 👑 😠and demanded for the American Experiment to continue.

Hopefully, this marks the beginning of the end for MAGA.

Trump, increasingly incoherent, remains a danger. But after a decade of dragging the country and the world through hell, he is officially a lame duck.

It took some longer to realize that Trump ain’t making America great.

Now it’s time for the better angels to get to work.

P.S. Donald Trump has been fired❗ He must resign❗

Donald Trump can hardly pronounce the six syllable word "affordability" so obviously he is unable to fix what he himself has broken

Elated that Donald Trump and his minions have been kicked to the curb. But before we do our happy dance, let’s remember something.

Echo opinion letter published in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Team Trump did not lose because Trump tried to silence journalists and labeled them the “enemy of the people.”

Voters didn’t abandon him because of his bromance with Russian President Vladimir Putin. They didn’t care that he hid classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago bathroom.
They didn’t vote his team out because he treated taxpayer dollars 💲 like his personal slush fund.

Most voters did not kick him out for deporting thousands of Latinos.

Instead, the primary reason Team Trump lost was “the economy, stupid.” It wasn’t until Americans started choking on the high price of gas, and groceries and health insurance that many people finally woke up.

The uneducated remain uneducated, and proud of it. Hatred of the Other is stronger than ever.

They say that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. So the next time a con artist comes gliding down a golden escalator looking for a presidential nomination, let’s remember what Trump did to this country. Let’s remember how, bit by bit, he stole our humanity, in broad daylight, as many voters just looked on. We all must be smarter next time.

From: Rosemary McDonough, Narberth Pennsylvania

Republicans were delusional when their cult led them to believe gerrymandering would secure GOP election wins

A roar of disapproval of Donald Trump and his incompetent regime
Echo opinion letter published in the Boston Globe by Kimberly Atkins Stohr.

Republicans tried to gerrymander its way to victory. It backfired spectacularly. The midterms results were brought to you by dummymandering.

Republicans did everything they could to hold on to political power, even through unfair and undemocratic means. Tuesday’s elections were conducted using gerrymandered voting maps that were enacted, with the blessing of the Supreme Court, to unfairly diminish the power of some citizens’ votes, particularly those of the very Americans our civil rights laws were meant to protect. Across the country, Republicans tried to rig the system to unfairly hold on to power.

But voters went to the polls and took their power back.

In a stunning rebuke of President Trump and Republicans from coast to coast, Democrats outperformed even the most generous polling predictions, handily winning control of both houses of Congress, a flurry of governorships, and turning state houses blue in states — including Texas, which arguably has the most gerrymandered map in the nation — that Trump carried easily in the presidential election just two short years ago.

From Texas to Tennessee to North Carolina, Republican-led mid-decade mapmaking aimed to dilute Democratic voting power, usually by targeting Black and brown communities. They accomplished this by either breaking up or “cracking” Black or brown urban areas like Memphis or “packing” them together, like the single Black majority district in Louisiana.

But here’s where things went wrong for the GOP: In trying to maximize the number of GOP-leaning districts in these states, they inadvertently diluted the voting power of Republicans. This happened not only because the new maps spread Republican voters too thinly within districts but also because Republicans didn’t account for independents and Latino voters who previously supported Trump rejecting GOP candidates.
The narrow GOP margins didn’t hold. The result❓ An absolute trouncing.

Even in Florida, where Republicans managed to hold off a blue wave, Republicans underperformed and vulnerable Democrats in targeted districts, like Representative Kathy Castor, held on.

This wasn’t what Republicans planned. After a 2019, Supreme Court ruling that eliminated the ability of federal courts to even hear challenges to partisan gerrymanders, state legislatures went to work. Despite the fact that congressional mapmaking is only mandated every 10 years, GOP-controlled states began a busy cycle of mid-decade redistricting efforts to put partisan gerrymanders in place faster.

But here’s the problem: In many states, the Venn diagram of a partisan gerrymander and a racial gerrymander, which is still prohibited by the Voting Rights Act, is often a circle. This is especially true in Southern states where the majority of Black Americans, who make up one of the strongest Democratic voting blocs, live. That gave Republicans the ability to fend off legal challenges alleging illegal racial gerrymandering with a ready defense: The maps in question were drawn based on politics, not race.

That turbocharged GOP gerrymandering efforts pushed by Trump. In one of the most egregious examples, Texas redrew maps to try to increase the number of Republicans that could be elected to Congress from the state by five. That spurred Democratic-controlled states like California and New York to try to blunt the effect with their own partisan gerrymandering.

Then, earlier this year, the Supreme Court again gave such efforts an additional boost, striking down a key part of the Voting Rights Act and rendering the ability to redress illegal racial gerrymanders in court almost impossible.

But here is what Republicans didn’t count on: Americans were paying close attention. In a year where corruption ranked among the biggest issues motivating voters, Americans went to the polls and rejected Republicans’ antidemocratic actions. Democrats outperformed. The thin margins in gerrymandered districts didn’t hold, and the blue tsunami flooded them.

No one should learn the wrong lesson from this outcome and think that gerrymandering doesn’t matter. It’s antidemocratic to try to dilute any community’s voting power in order to game the outcome of elections. Even when done defensively to try to blunt the effect of other states’ orchestrated discriminatory mapmaking movement, as California did, in the end you cannot gerrymander your way to fair elections.

Instead, congressional Democrats and lawmakers in newly blue state houses must use the mandate voters gave them in this election to pass laws that ensure voting districts become and remain representative of the people, so that their lawmakers can be accountable to the people. That is a day one priority that must be done simultaneously with the other urgent work ahead that includes addressing affordability, housing, immigration reform, corruption, and so much more. 

Yes, the people have spoken. Now comes time for action.

Kimberly Atkins Stohr is a columnist for the Boston Globe.

Donald Trump invited MAGA to a November 3 election watch party but the reception room was empty by 10 AM- Where was Marco Rubio?

Donald Trump’s election night watch party at the White House turned into a somber, empty ghost town on November 3, 2026, as Democrats swept to power in Congress during a historic midterm rout.

Dark scene': Trump watch party emptied so fast the Cheesecake Factory food went untouched reported in Raw Story by Travis Gettys.

Cabinet officials, political advisers and MAGA allies filed into the East Room on Tuesday evening, where trays of Cheesecake Factory finger food were laid out and screens were tuned to the returns, reported the Daily Mail.

But the 80-year-old president never came down.

Instead, Donald Trump stayed upstairs in the private residence with chief of staff Susie Wiles and Natalie Harp, the aide who has enjoyed unusually direct access to Trump throughout his second term. First lady Melania Trump, according to the report, was not watching with him.  

As the scale of the losses came into focus, Trump’s loyalists began heading for the exits, first senior staff and then some Cabinet members. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was there early in the evening but later “could not be found anywhere,” the Daily Mail reported.

By the time the House was called for Democrats just before 10 p.m., the room had largely emptied. Staffers weren’t just leaving the party but the building, decamping to a nearby D.C. bar. The Cheesecake Factory spread was left on the tables, uneaten.

“It’s very, very dark in the residence,” one senior official said of Trump’s mood. “It’s a dark scene.”

By 11 p.m., Trump had gone quiet.

“He’s watching Fox News barely uttering a word and paralyzed into silence,” a source close to the president told the outlet. Upstairs, Donald Trump was fuming.

Those who stayed downstairs weren’t faring much better. One senior official described longtime Trump communications strategist Jason Miller as sweating and panicking as the results rolled in.

At the bar three streets away, mid-level staffers working through the whiskey floated calling out sick Wednesday morning and swapped rumors about who would survive the week.

“Maybe that’s the booze talking,” one senior official told the Daily Mail.  (Does Pete Hegseth have an alibi about where he was on November 3, while the White House crowd headed to the nearest bar❓)

At Butterworths, the Capitol Hill restaurant co-owned by GOP strategist Raheem Kassam, a watch party soured as the numbers came in.

“Wow, I’m about to lose my job,” an aide to a Republican congressman said.

At Republican National Committee headquarters, one source said, you could hear a pin drop.

The official White House line described the mood as “somewhat defiant.”  Indeed, Donald Trump has been here before. In 2022, he watched the midterms from Mar-a-Lago with reporters invited in to see what his advisers expected to be a landslide. As hs hand-picked candidates fell, the press was hustled out, and Trump turned on his staff.

God Bless Pope Leo during missionary travels to South America in Uruguay, Argentina and his beloved Peru

Weeks After Cancer Surgery, Pope Leo XIV Tells Uruguay Everyone Deserves Health Care

Echo report published in Letters from Leo

Speaking 24 days after surgeons removed part of his right lung, Leo said his own illness made him think of those who can’t get a timely diagnosis. On the plane, he said he was “proud to be American” and to vote.

Pope Leo XIV stood before Uruguay’s leaders in Montevideo on Friday, 24 days after surgeons in Rome removed the lower lobe of his right lung, and told them what cancer had taught him.

“Very recently I experienced firsthand the limitations imposed by illness and I received care for which I am deeply grateful,” the pope said at Plaza Independencia, speaking in Spanish to President Yamandú Orsi, government officials, civil society leaders, and the diplomatic corps.

Then he turned that gratitude into a demand. “Ensuring that healthcare is accessible to everyone, regardless of their resources, is a duty that confronts every society,” Leo said.

It was the first papal visit to Uruguay since John Paul II came in 1988. The Vatican estimated 30,000 people turned out for the welcome, and crowds along the motorcade route chanted “Pope Leo, Uruguay is with you!” as the 71-year-old rode past in an open-sided popemobile.

A month ago, few people would have bet on that scene. When the Vatican confirmed his adenocarcinoma diagnosis on Oct. 13, the 12-day journey through Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru looked doubtful, and Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the pope might have to “adjust his pontificate.”

“Maybe better”: Leo addressed the doubters himself on the 13½-hour flight from Rome. Walking to the back of the plane to greet the 80 journalists traveling with him, he told them, “I confess that from the first day, I had no doubt and was convinced that this trip had to go forward.”

A reporter asked whether he felt as good as he looked. “Maybe better,” 😊 the pope answered, and the reporters laughed. He credited his recovery to “trusting God, good doctors, good surgeons, and overall I think a healthy lifestyle.”

The doctors at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital have their own way of describing him. Professor Stefano Margaritora, the thoracic surgeon who operated on Leo, told a story about the second day after the operation, when the staff turned around and found the pope arranging the chairs in the hospital chapel himself.

When the staff offered to take over, Leo told them, “It doesn’t matter. I can do it, so I will.” As Margaritora put it, “He really was an absolutely ideal patient.”

That patient was back at his Angelus window five days after surgery, and on October 21, his doctors confirmed the tumor had been localized and that he would need no further cancer treatment.

What Pope Leo's own illness taught him

Leo knows how rare his outcome is. Doctors caught the nodule early during a routine checkup, and after Gemelli’s chief of thoracic surgery removed it, he was home at the Vatican within four days. Millions of sick people around the world never get a scan at all.

He said as much on Friday, telling the crowd that his own care made him think of the “many men and women who lack the means to obtain a timely diagnosis.” Then he put the obligation on everyone in the square. “It is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that each person can live with dignity,” he said.

This was not a new theme for him. In February, 2026, Leo told the Pontifical Academy for Life that “healthcare is not a consumer good but a universal right,” as I reported at the time. A month later, he called universal coverage “a moral imperative for societies that wish to call themselves just.” He is the first pope from a country that still has no universal health coverage, and his own illness has only sharpened the point.

Leo did not separate that claim from the rest of the Church’s teaching on life. “The unborn already belong to the human family and to the future of their people,” he said in a country that legalized abortion in 2012, and assisted dying last year.

He never named the euthanasia law. Instead, he spoke about suicide, arguing that good medical care, family ties, and closeness in the community cannot be pulled apart. “None should ever feel like a stranger among their own,” he said.

In Latin America’s most secular country (Uruguay’s official calendar calls Holy Week “Tourism Week”), Leo also made a quiet case for faith in public life. A neutral state, he said, “does not require that the religious dimension be confined to the private sphere.”

This was not a new theme for him. In February, Pope Leo told the Pontifical Academy for Life that “healthcare is not a consumer good but a universal right,” as I reported at the time. A month later, he called universal coverage “a moral imperative for societies that wish to call themselves just.” He is the first pope from a country that still has no universal health coverage, and his own illness has only sharpened the point.

Leo did not separate that claim from the rest of the Church’s teaching on life. “The unborn already belong to the human family and to the future of their people,” he said in a country that legalized abortion in 2012 and assisted dying last year.

He never named the euthanasia law. Instead, he spoke about suicide, arguing that good medical care, family ties, and closeness in the community cannot be pulled apart. “None should ever feel like a stranger among their own,” he said.

In Latin America’s most secular country (Uruguay’s official calendar calls Holy Week “Tourism Week”), Leo also made a quiet case for faith in public life. ✝️

A neutral state, he said, “does not require that the religious dimension be confined to the private sphere.”

God Bless Pope Leo 😇

Donald Trump responds to failure in the 2026 mid-term elections when he put his name on the ballots. So, he promoted evil Stephen Miller

(Evil) Stephen Miller’s promotion tells you everything about Trump’s next two years. Here are three takeaways. Echo report published in the Boston Globe by James Pindell.

To Donald Trump. You must resign or be fired❗

For all that has changed in American politics this week after the 2026 mid-term elections, and during the Trump era generally, some things remain true: a classic Friday afternoon news dump from the White House.

The news that Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, will be replaced by Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is the most consequential fallout yet from the midterm elections, which not only saw the Republican majorities in Congress swept aside but possibly Trumpism itself.

Even so, Trump has two more years remaining in his term. And because of that, there were questions about how those next two years would go. With this move on Friday, we got Trump’s early response.

Here are three things it means

There will be no Trump pivot, just like there was never going to be a Trump pivot. Imagine this scenario: Trump is a transactional political creature. Ideology has always taken a back seat. He can run for president slamming China and then court the communist dictator looking to make deals. He can encourage White nationalists on the presidential debate stage and also lobby for and sign criminal justice reform. He can even agree with Bernie Sanders on a number of populist issues, including a critique of Kamala Harris’s corporate backers and the government being a part owner in Intel, a private company. It’s not impossible to think that a president like this, particularly one in legacy mode as Trump has been for months, would try to find a way to put his name on bills that the populist MAGA base and the populist left would celebrate together.  

Soon to be the presumed Speaker of the House of Representatives

After all, wasn’t the entire point of the Jared Kushner meeting with likely incoming House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries in September❓ To find some common things Trump and Democrats could do together. But, no. By picking (evil) Miller, Trump has double-, triple-, and quadrupled-down by making the most important staffer the one who might be the most ardent MAGA supporter still left.
Jeffries quickly weighed in on the chief of staff news this way,  “Stephen Miller is a dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist who has American blood on his hands. His presence in government should be eradicated like a malignant tumor.”

“Fire him today.”  So much for that. 

Gear up for endless stories of infighting in the White House:

During Trump’s second term, it has been increasingly noted, including in the book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, that Miller not only leads the White House policy agenda but will walk into a meeting, perhaps even outside his lane, and say he speaks for the president. Since everyone believes he does, he does.

That combative, grievance-filled role actually worked in enacting a bold agenda (see: ICE raids) while Trump was out “weaving” on a stage somewhere. Wiles was the figure who could deftly keep people in line and create a White House with far less drama than during his first term.

Now, she is out, Miller is in, and everyone inside is watching their backs for signs they might be the next to get ousted. It is only logical that cabinet members and high-profile staffers will test Miller’s management skills. The guy hasn’t managed a business, a Senate office, or even a statewide campaign.   Given all of the congressional investigations we are likely to see, it is going to be cover-your-butt central at the White House, and Miller doesn’t exactly have the demeanor or experience to guide the administration through it all.

JD Vance’s presidential prospects got even worse.

You know who all of this chaos really isn’t good for❓ Vice President JD Vance. (aka the former Marine corporal.)

He spent 2025, trying to unite the already testy MAGA coalition behind himself. He even got involved in the podcaster wars between Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro, basically saying everyone should chill out and that everyone is on the same team. If there isn’t a fractured party, he waltzes in as the 2028, Republican Party leading a united party. But, after this election, and during the coming year as presidential primary season approaches, that’s going to be a fool’s errand. Already, everyone wants to define the future of the Republican Party, from Mike Pence, who will be in Boston next week, to former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan to Steve Bannon.

But it’s the near future of Trumpism that will continue to define Vance, and with (evil) Miller running the show inside the White House, that outlook is increasingly bleak.

James Pindell is a Boston Globe political reporter who reports and analyzes American politics, especially in New England.

Donald Trump will continue to abuse his position and continue his failed leadership even after 2026. He must resign!

Echo opinion letters published in the Boston Globe. 

Americans had had it with this corrupt Donald Trump administration. He was fired and must vacate the office that he has abused❗

Why were the Democrats able to sweep across the dry expanse of Republican rule like a tidal wave❓🌊

It wasn’t the high gas prices or inflation in general or the tariffs, or the war in Iran and the broken promise of peace, or the president’s thousands of lies and his corruption, or the inhumane tearing apart of families and lives because the president is racist and xenophobic, or the insults and invectives he has hurled daily against anyone who questions his policies, or the way his policies are whims that flutter in the breeze, or that he has turned our most valued friends and allies against us while he reveres leaders who rule as autocrats and fascists.

No, the reason Democrats swept the land as they did is that all of these fault lines have coalesced into one ancient yet most civilized reaction: disgust 🤢. The people cried, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

From: Elliot Entis in Newton, Massachusetts 

People will look back at this election with a mix of emotions and interpretations. But to say that the American people spoke is an understatement. They roared❗🦁

From: Norman L. Bender in Woodbridge, Connecticut

Donald Trump is a failed leader who must be removed as quickly as possible because he is dangerous

Echo opinion by Jackie Calmes published in The Mercury News

Republicans have literally nothing to lose to impeach Trump again❗

Guess what❓ Your parents’ Republican Party is NOT coming back
following the historic midterm 2026, defeat. But stupid conservatives refuse to abandon Donald Trump and his agenda. #SIAST

Donald Trump promised Republicans that, with him as their leader, there’d be so many wins, they’d tire of winning. 

But, he didn’t say the wins, ultimately, would be Democrats’.

In the wake of a wipeout for the ages, is the Republican Party so tired of Democrats’ winning that it will finally quit Trump❓Don’t count on it. Not yet. But that question will define the 2028, presidential election cycle, which began the day after Republicans’ rout — and Donald Trump’s much-deserved rebuke — in Tuesday’s 2026 midterm elections. For Republicans, keeping the garishly gilded White House after 2028, just got a lot harder.

Trump promised retribution. The American voters took theirs. "Vote as if I’m on the ballot", Trump said at his campaign rallies, and voters did. Yet, Trump predictably blamed others, the Republican candidates themselves, for the losses even though he hand-picked many of the biggest losers (“losers” in every sense of the word; candidate quality matters).

But, Trump was right about one thing: For a century, the party of the president typically has lost seats, in Congress and governorships and statehouses, as voters send a message to the White House about dissatisfaction with its direction. Bill Clinton had his “drubbing” in 1994, George W. Bush his “thumping” in 2006, and Barack Obama his “shellacking” in 2010. Yet, each president, by those words, acknowledged that the voters’ message was to them and conceded their responsibility for their parties’ losses. And each one changed course, somehow.

Obviously, not Trump, though his spanking (yep ❗, that’s a nod to his bizarre, late-campaign obsession with men’s butts) was more pronounced than his predecessors’. 

Nor does change seem to be the inclination of the party he still controls more fully than any president before him.

Speaker “MAGA Mike” Johnson, the (Christian❗) Louisiana Republican who in January will forfeit power and House control to current Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, vowed that House Republicans will “double down” on the agenda voters so decisively damned. Former Trump press secretary turned Fox (FAKE❗) News pundit Kayleigh McEnany said that results “vindicated … Republicans who said we need to play hardball.”

This defiance, like much else about Trump times, is a break from normal politics, going back decades. After past presidents were blamed for midterm debacles, members of their party publicly demanded changes, distanced themselves or even broke from the White House. That’s a sign of a healthy party.

Trump's Republican Party is not a healthy one.

In his first term, neither Donald Trump nor the party changed after the 2018, midterm elections, despite Republicans losing their House majority. Unlike the reformed Clinton and Obama, the unreformed Trump lost reelection two years later and cost Republicans control of the Senate as well as the House. 

Then came January 6, 2021. If Republican fealty to Trump didn’t break then, it won’t after November 3, 2026.

After the 2022 elections midway through President Biden’s term, Republican Party “leaders” and operatives privately fumed that the then-out-of-office Trump, by his antics and legal quagmires, caused the expected red wave to dwindle to a trickle of gains. 

Still, they didn’t hold him to account. And when Trump immediately, seemingly implausibly, announced his candidacy to recapture the presidency, party voters all but trampled the aspiring Republican nominee, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a rush to reboard the Trump Train.

Now, Trump stands uniquely culpable for the worst midterm elections outcome yet. He’s earned his record-low unpopularity: By his signature tariffs and a new Mideast war. The inflation resulting from both. A violent immigration crackdown. Corruption. Incompetence. Prioritization of gold and granite vanity projects over Americans’ needs and wants. And bad candidates, chosen simply for their loyalty to him.

And yet Trump remains president, with all the power he can grab either constitutionally or not, along with a proven predilection for revenge, a humongous campaign war chest and the seemingly unbreakable loyalty of an overwhelming, if eroded, share of Republican voters.

Bubble of sycophants

Lest anyone forget that, on Wednesday November 4, morning, as Republicans raked over their ruins, the White House posted a photo of a scowling Trump leaning with his fists into his Oval Office desk. Caption: “PSA: Trump is still your president.”

For two more years, Trump will continue to dwell in his bubble of sycophants. The fact that he spent election eve at the Reflecting Pool showcasing that failed vanity makeover — a metaphor for his warped priorities that no worthy advisor would have allowed — was hard evidence there’s no one around him who tells Trump “no.” 

That is dangerous. Then, on Wednesday, he surfaced, not to assure voters he’d heard their verdict on him but to show off the under-construction ballroom that two-thirds of Americans oppose.

Yes, Trump’s successor-wannabes, notably Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and DeSantis, have taken baby steps to separate themselves, particularly on the war. 

Nevertheless, any Republican seeking the 2028, nomination knows they can’t run at Trump, given his all but certain continued hold on MAGA voters.

As even some Republican operatives privately confide, it likely will take losing the White House in 2028, for the party to agree it must shed Trumpism and rebuild. Still, your parents’ Republican Party isn’t coming back.

As for Democrats, their challenge is not reading their triumph so much as a “blue tsunami,” but, as what the Bulwark site called an “orange crush”, — are anti-Trump, but not necessarily pro-Democrats.

A Democratic Congress should take back Congress’ powers on spending, war, tariffs and oversight of the executive branch that servile Republicans surrendered. Its priorities should be not Trump’s impeachment, but delivering on Democrats’ promises to promote Americans’ economic well-being. Try to reverse Republican healthcare cuts and offset the cost by both clawing back the tens of billions of dollars that Trump got to create an army of anti-immigrant agents and withholding money for further war in the Mideast.

And if Trump uses his veto, as he’s already vowed to do, then the fight is on: for both Congress and the White House in 2028.

Jackie Calmes is an opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times in Washington, D.C.