Thoughts for the Day, December 15, 2025: A deplorable response to a tragedy.

Today’s blog was nearly complete until I opened the news to see Trump’s response to the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele yesterday. Trump has said many despicable things while president, but this is about as bad as it gets, especially considering the mass shootings at Brown University, Bondi Beach, Australia, and in Syria.

Here is what he said. Mr. Reiner’s death was “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” Asked by reporters later in the day whether he stood by those comments, Mr. Trump was unapologetic: “Well, I wasn’t a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person.” He added, “I thought he was very bad for our country.”

His response is not the response of a normal human being. It is not the response of someone who has a drop of empathy in his soul. It is not the response of someone who cares about his fellow citizens. It is not the response of someone who is mentally healthy. It is not the response of a large majority of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. It is not how we as Americans respond to tragedy to a fellow citizen.

It is shameful. Trump gets my Onion of the Day

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A true hero

From the Guardian: When Ahmed al-Ahmed tackled and wrestled a gun from an alleged shooter at Bondi beach, he was simply thinking that he “couldn’t bear to see people dying”, his cousin says.

Less than a day later, al-Ahmed remains in a critical but stable condition at St George hospital in Sydney.

He has also been hailed as a hero by Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese paying tribute to his actions as an example of “Australians coming together”. “Ahmed al-Ahmed … took the gun off that perpetrator at great risk to himself and suffered serious injury as a result of that, and is currently going through operations today in hospital,” Albanese said.

The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, visited al-Ahmed in hospital and posted on Instagram praising the “real-life hero”. “Last night, his incredible bravery no doubt saved countless lives when he disarmed a terrorist at enormous personal risk,” Minns wrote. “There is no doubt that more lives would have been lost if not for [al-Ahmed’s] selfless courage.”

See my Video of the Day for al-Ahmed’s heroics.

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347 mass shootings and counting. More than one per day.

From The Guardian: Saturday’s violence at Brown brought the number of mass shootings in the US for the year to at least 389, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Saturday was the 347th day of the year.

Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator, drew parallels to the Sandy Hook shooting in his state of Connecticut, which killed 26 people. “What I know is that a community never, ever recovers from a shooting like this,” he told CNN on Sunday, the 13th anniversary of the elementary school shooting.

Senator Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat and Baptist minister, echoed similar sentiments to NBC on Sunday.

“I can tell you that as a pastor who has presided over many funerals, I don’t think that there’s any pain deeper than when nature is violently reversed and rather than children burying their parents, the parent has to bury the child,” Warnock said. “And so we pray prayers for these families. But we have to pray not only with our lips – but with our action.

“Any nation that tolerates this kind of violence year after year, decade after decade in random places on our college and school campuses without doing all that we can to stop it is broken and in need of moral repair.”

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And then there is this

From the Wall Street Journal: The Whitfield County (Georgia) Republican Party Christmas dinner Tuesday night offered the usual trappings of a Southern GOP gathering. About 50 party stalwarts dined on fried chicken, sweet tea, opened the event with a prayer to “Dear Lord Jesus” and closed by raffling off an AR-15.

Maybe I am wrong but praying to Jesus and raffling of an AR-15 at the same event seems contradictory to me.

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From Nolan Finley of the Detroit News

The University of Michigan, with the firing and arrest of head coach Sherrone Moore, is learning again the dangers of building a reputation on a foundation of football.

UM is among America’s premier universities, turning out graduates who truly become “the leaders and best” in industry, government and civil life.

But how excited does its alumni base and the public get when a superstar researcher pushes the limits of science? Or when a conclave of the world’s top minds gather to improve the prospects of peace and prosperity? Or when a brilliant surgeon rebuilds a tiny heart?

All those things are happening at UM. But nothing matters except football. Moore’s arrest is the latest in a series of sports-related incidents that have dominated the conversation and brought shame to the campus.

It has become a national epidemic. As collegiate football and basketball have become more central to a school’s identity…,

Michigan State launched a $1 billion fundraising campaign to “elevate” its athletic facilities. A single donor has already committed $401 million, which would be he largest gift MSU has ever received. That’s $1 billion to build world-class sports programs. Not $1 billion to construct the most advanced research laboratories, or a new wing for its medical school, or to endow scholarships that would make an MSU degree more affordable for Michigan kids.

The reality is that these are collegiate programs in name only.

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Should Warde Manual be hiring the next football coach at U of M.

The Detroit News on Friday reported that the Michigan Board of Regents had authorized the law firm Jenner & Block to expand its investigation into the firing of Moore and look into the athletic department’s culture. The Chicago-based law firm was previously hired to investigate the allegations against the head football coach weeks ago, when the board first heard the rumors.

Normally, the athletic director is the person who is responsible for the hiring of the next football coach. In Michigan’s case, I am not sure it is the right thing to do considering all the scandals and transgressions that have occurred in the football program, hockey program, and basketball program by people that Warde Manual hired since taking over as the AD in 2016

I was going to list all the transgressions/scandals that have occurred with the football program, hockey program, and basketball program under Manual’s watch. However, the list is too long, and I don’t have enough space in my blog to list all of them.

With an interim president and an athletic department being investigated by the Regents, U of M should remain patient before pulling the trigger on hiring a new football coach. The university should not be hiring a football coach, when the football coach’s immediate bosses (AD and president) are in flux. If it means losing a year of recruitment, so be it. Getting the positions of president, AD, and football coach right are more important than losing one year of a recruiting class.

Michigan scandals under Warde Manuel from Matt Weiss to Sherrone Moore

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From Mary Geddry on Friday

This should be a wake-up call to all Americans.

Denmark, loyal NATO stalwart, Scandinavian model citizen, and historically one of America’s most dependable allies, has now formally classified the United States as a national security risk. Not because of espionage or trade disputes or some Beltway misunderstanding, but because the Trump administration’s behavior has become so erratic, so openly aligned with Moscow’s preferences, and so hostile to democratic norms that Copenhagen’s intelligence services now treat Washington as a destabilizing actor. The kind you monitor, the kind you plan around, the kind whose policy swings can undermine your own national defense.

This is the kind of diplomatic recalibration that used to be reserved for rogue states, not for the country that once anchored the entire postwar security order. But the message from Europe is unmistakable: the problem is no longer just Orbán and Fico. The problem is the United States, specifically this United States, the one governed by a man whose foreign policy compass spins like a rigged carnival wheel and always seems to land on whatever benefits the Kremlin. Europe is no longer asking whether America can be trusted. It is drawing up contingency plans for when it cannot.

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Quote of the Day: “So here we are, Europe is insulating itself from American sabotage, America is suing its own states on behalf of trillion-dollar companies, Congress is rolling into recess while 24 million people stare down unaffordable healthcare, and the U.S. Navy is now reenacting Pirates of the Caribbean with live ammunition. It’s almost enough to make you nostalgic for the days when the only thing breaking was the news, not the entire concept of governance.” Mary Geddry in her blog on Friday

Orchid of the Day: Ahmed al-Ahmen for his heroics in disarming one of the shooters in Bondi Beach.

Onion of the Day: President Trump for his response to the murder of Rob and Michele Reiner.

Question of Day: What is Trump Derangement Syndrome? Can someone please explain.

Lyrics of the Day:

Someday at Christmas, men won’t be boys
Playing with bombs like kids play with toys
One warm December, our hearts will see
A world where men are free

Someday at Christmas, there’ll be no wars
When we have learned what Christmas is for
When we have found what life’s really worth
There’ll be peace on Earth

If you think you know the answer, post your response in the comment section of the blog.

Lyrics of the Day for December 11, 2025. Last Christmas

Video of the Day: Ahmed al-Ahmen’s heroics at Bondi Beach.