Two states, one red, one blue, just defied Trump's atttack on states ability to control their elections.

 December 11, 2025, was a civics lesson in states' rights to control their elections:Two states, one red, one blue, just defied Trump's attack on their states' rights, defying his attempts to federalize and control the election process and state laws. The GOP majority in the Indiana state senate refused to go along with Trump's pressure and threats of being primaried and losing federal funds if they refused to redistrict boundaries gerrymandered to increase GOP Congressional votes in time for the 2026 midterms. As one GOP state senator who voted to defy Trump on this issue commented on MSNOW, Indiana Republicans favor small government, and they resented Trump's pressure to federalize partisan advantages. The Indiana senators also defied death and bomb threats to do it.

In another case in Colorado, Trump declared once again that he would pardon Tina Peters, who is currently in a Colorado prison, having been found guilty of violating state election laws when she sought to take favorable action on behalf of Trump. Colorado officials, the governor, attorney general, and secretary of state said no, and also defied the president and his threats. They asserted that Trump can only pardon those found guilty of violating federal laws, per the Constitution, not state laws. Peters was convicted under state election laws.

Affordability vs economy is not about semantics; both are true at the same time

 Affordability vs economy is not about semantics; both are true at the same time. Why the disconnect? Trump may be touting his great economy, but those concerned about having enough money to pay for the basics have been left out of his "economy". The Trump administration's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) resulted in a shift of wealth toward the wealthiest Americans and corporations, the "greatest upward transfer of wealth in American history," some say, and Trump made affordability worse by his tariffs and cutting everything from SNAP to Obamacare. However, those who live paycheck to paycheck or barely make ends meet, at least 40% of Americans, are those for whom the term "affordability" means something, and the term "economy being great" looks like a lie by an out-of-touch president. Polls and recent off-year election wins by those who made affordability their top issue show that the political chickens have come home to roost.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Failed To Deliver Promised Benefits - Center for American Progress

Trump and Putin: dividing up the world. Did you vote for this?

Update: 12/12/2025.In February 1945, at the Yalta conference, the US, UK, USSR, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met and came to an agreement that virtually divided the world into two and led to the Cold War for the next 45 years...The USSR claimed Eastern Europe as its sphere of influence, and the Iron Curtain descended within a few months. Roosevelt had died soon after Yalta. Trump is now telling Western Europe and Eastern Europe both, even they are in the sphere of Russian influence. There will be no help from the US. This takes us back to the early 1900s, even worse than the Yalta catastrophe. What happened in 1914 and 1939 was the result. Here we are again in 2025, repeating history. and the stupidity of the isolationists of the past century. Trump has succeeded in de facto destroying the NATO Atlantic alliance, a further echo and potential repeat of the tragedy of the last century. Scroll down for the original post and earlier updates..

Through various reports, Guardian among them, Trump is considering abandoning Ukraine. That is only one issue.. In a so-called American First ideology, Trump is cutting most ties with Western Europe as well. He has already been subverting NATO and its mutual defense purpose and now there is no burden sharing of armaments with Europe. NATO now only exists in issues of nuclear defense..Welcome to the 1938 version of America First.  How did that turn out?

The sad thing about this post is, like in 1938, American citizens did not give a darn of what happened in Europe, and America First isolationism held heavy political inflence is...until Pearl Harbor. The rest of historyis about is US's blood and treasure in World War II. I fear we are about to make the tremendous miscalculation that US defense is not also connected to Europe, with our economic ties and culture, even more entwined than in 1938. If war breaks out in Europe beyond the boundaries of Ukraine, just maybe the uneducated and naive American Firsters may wake up...when it is too late.

Trump is threatening Western Europe with repercussions if it funds Ukraine's defense with Russian funds in Western banks. In December, 2025, the EU defied American pressure and ensured that Hungary and Slovakia cannot veto their use of the funds to help Ukraine. EU triggers emergency clause to indefinitely immobilise Russian assets | Euronews

What Trump is in effect doing he is leaving the sphere of influence across the Atlantic to Russia by his own edict and orders. He recently shifted our Mediterranean fleet from Europe to near Venezuela..., indicating the US sphere of influence is solely the Western Hemisphere. Trump appears to demand Ukraine surrender to Russia's "peace plan" or "'else", terms that will eventually lead to Russia taking over all of that country. This is a striking spoken alliance of Trump and Putin, cutting out Western Europe. In 2026, Trump is laying the groundwork, many fear, to hand Ukraine on a silver platter to Russia, whose stated goal is to reassemble the USSR influence over the countries they lost when the Berlin Wall fell. This is not what America signed up for in 2024, but it is what Trump is actually doing by his actions, deeds, and words.

Back to days even I remember, WWII. It is also repeating history. It is the isolationism that led to WWII, as Japan and Germany thought and miscalculated on the US's resolve to remain isolated. Germany had counted on pro Nazi and American Firsters, who were US politicians, to influence its support for Germany or remain neutral. It is now like 1938 when the UK prime minister handed over part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler and proclaimed it was peace in our time.

Trump thinks he is a dictator and he can get away with this as Congress sleeps an/ord bows down to him, and any violation of laws and the Constitution is no longer punishable thanks to the gift of immunity by "his" 6-3 Supreme Court. What fools we are to tolerate this.

Europe also sees Trump and Putin's contempt of them, reinforcing Trump's disdain of Europe. From the German weekly magazine, Der Spiegel 12.20.2025 in a commentary titled" Trump and Putin, partners in malice."

"The tone Trump strikes toward Europe oscillates between pity, contempt and open hostility. .... "The Trump administration sometimes couches its criticism in the language of concern.......  In practice, though, this means the U.S. government is now officially supporting right-wing populist forces from Stockholm to Madrid. “Cultivating resistance” is the phrase used in the document – which, to the ears of European politicians, sounds suspiciously like regime change.." The article continues that NATO is no longer "burden sharing" with the US when it comes to provisions of armaments. NATO in effect is only sharing nuclear defense with US support, and now  Europe is on its own for assistance for non nuclear defense.  Earlier, Trump had threatened to destroy Article 5 of the NATO treaty  if Europe did not contribute at least 2% of their GDP to their own self defense (these are not "dues" as Trump had deceptively claimed, but a commitment). Europe rose to that and complied ...and exceeded the 2% so now Trump says...it is all 100% yours, on your own, no burden sharing. He has defacto succeeded in destroying the Atlantic alliance, in a repeat of the stupidity of the isolationists of the past century. I

The accountability for Venezuelan boat attack: symptom of a larger problem

 Who can be held accountable for the two-tap Venezuelan drug boat hit? This is a symptom of a larger problem: the pattern of the Trump administration's strategy to avoid accountability for any unpopular or controversial act. The buck no longer stops at the Oval Office desk. "The Buck Stops Here" Desk sign | Harry S. Truman

Trump is saved from legal action by the Supreme Court granting him immunity: Those below him are accountable and do not have immunity, but it is not as simple as we are learning to pin anything on them, as well. Probably the only entity with the power to expose responsibility is Congress, which is now engaged in doing so.: Trump's usual pattern of response when he is challenged for his actions is to deflect attention by claiming the protesters are against something they are not. He also reacts by throwing his own appointees "under the bus", letting them to take the fall and blame.

What particularly frustrates holding Trump legally responsible for an act is that the Supreme Court puts Trump above the law and he would never be held accountable within the justice system or outside of it for various reasons. there is an excellent discussion of this in a CNN analysis: Trump is immune from accountability for boat strikes. What about everyone under him? | CNN Politics

Here is how this Venezuelan boat controversy, side-stepping accountability, could play out based on Trumpian response to being blamed for other unpopular actions that get blowback.. I see this one as typical of Trumpian strategy: pick an issue that most support...stop narco and human trafficking...and get rid of migrants who committed crimes in our country. and claim the libs are supporting all of those sins. Narco and human trafficking, and migrants with serious criminal records are bad guys, and these are are motherhood and apple pie kinds of a consensus held by both the left and the right. Then, when there is an objection to the methods or legality, Trump will claim the libs are supporting human trafficking and drug runners and narco trafficking and want to cripple the military.

There will be many in MAGA who will nod their heads and say "amen" without serious consideration of the implications, political fallout, or the methods. They will just pass it off as "you hate Trump" or ignore the methods used to carry out goals, which is the essence of the criticism. Where Trump et al go off the rails is the methods they use that far exceed what they promised to do. Most migrants deported by ICE and grabbed without a warrant, for example, have no criminal record, and appear to be treated cruelly and brutally, violating human and civil rights and threatening family separation to force compliance. Per the CATO ,Institute, 73% of those detained by ICE have no criminal record, and only 5% have a record of violent crimes. Politically, polls are showing the majority of voters are showing disdain for the methods, if not the goal. Trump may have underestimated the blowback to his methods, if not the goals. Most Immigrants Support Border Enforcement, but Not Mass Deportations, Poll Finds - The New York Times

MAGA itself has been spooked to support mass deportations by such claims that yearly 4000 are killed by undocumented migrants. However, as Reuters reported, there are few statistics available but there are statistics on the commission of crime in general that show that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the general population.  Texas does keep such statistics and they also agree that migrants commit crimes less than do the citizen population. Fact Check: No evidence 4,000 people are killed yearly by undocumented immigrants | Reuters

5% of People Detained By ICE Have Violent Convictions, 73% No Convict.ons | Cato at Liberty Blog