Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Over and out


Goodbye 2025 and good riddance! 

Looking outside the window this morning on this last day of the year, December 31, 2025, I see the grass is still green, with some begiuning to take on a yellowish tinge. Our temperature here has barely dipped below freezing and no snow has fallen yet, as has happened farther north. So is it really winter here? 


Now, at age 79, Donald Trump seems to keep falling asleep during meetings. Is he tired of being president? Is he tired of life? 

It's really better for Trump to just stay alseep. When he is awake, Trump's modus operandi increasingly seems to be mean and nasty, deliberately vindictive, to try to upset lots of other people, and just make life miserable for as many folks as he possibly can. He never wants to be known as Mr. Nice Guy. Maybe being cruel and getting away with it somehow is gratifying to his ego, making him feel really powerful? No wonder his approval rating among voters is now in seriously negative territorty. 


CNN says Donald Trump’s approval rating has swung from +6 in January to -12 in December. What a difference a year makes! Donald Trump won the presidency by a slim majority, but much of his support has now evaporated. Trump himself seems to have lost his zest for the job as well, often dozing off during the day and asking voters whether he should quit. At 79, he may not live many more years. After becoming the US president, what more does he aspire to?  (Of course, there's always that elusive Nobel Peace Prize.)



The Daily Beast

Trump Caught Moaning About His Saddest Moment of 2025


Donald Trump has complained loudly and often about not getting the Nobel Peace Prize, which he contends that he richly deserves. Trump is definitely a guy who must have missed some crucial caring during his early life, making him crave continuous praise and adulation. South Korea was wise to have offered him a golden crown, as per an earlier post.

The Hill, President Trump claimed Tuesday that his “real” approval rating is at 64 percent, despite polls showing it is below 50 percent.

“The polls are rigged even more than the writers,” Trump said in a late-night Truth Social post. “The real number is 64%, and why not, our Country is ‘hotter’ than ever before.”


Associated Press

Capitol riot 'does not happen' without Trump, Jack Smith told Congress



Do you still believe whatever Mr. Trump says and do you also believe that his health nowat all that at age 79  is "great"? Can we believe anything Donald Trump says? 
Just take whatever he says and reverse it to get the truth about anything. His political support is falling off, not only among voters, but among Congressional Republicans as well. 

Can we actually expect Trump to live until the end of his term, 3 years from now? That seems like a very long time, allowing him do still more damage to our counntry and to the world. He's a guy without any empathy for others, whose impact is mostly negative, who enjoys harming and upsetting other people. Maybe that shows his power, like a king of old who might say, "Off with his head" and the order would be immediately carried out. Trump is now king of the world. 



Though officially reported to be in excellent health, Donald Trump is also thought to have "cankles." 

"Cankles" is a term used in online speculation regarding President Trump's health, specifically referring to his visibly swollen ankles and lower legs. The White House confirmed in July 2025 that the swelling is due to a diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), which involves poor blood flow from the legs, but is usually not life-threatening.

Fred Trump, Donald's father lived to age 93. 
======================================

Younger folks are already making headlines, not waiting for Donlad Trump to retire. Among them are California Governor Gavin Newsom, age 58, Vice President JD Vance, 41, and NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, 34. Former Vice President Kamala Harris is already 61, so needs to get going again if she is going anywhere. 


                                                        Zohran Mamdani 


Zohran Mamdani, age 34, the newly elected mayor of New York City, campaigned on an ambitious plan for universal, taxpayer-funded childcare for all children from 6 weeks to 5 years old. He recently got married, but has no children himself as yet. What other ambitions might he have? Having not been born in the US, he cannot run for president, but other offices are open to him..

Google, that final authority, says: the U.S. Constitution requires the President to be a "natural-born citizen," meaning they must be born a U.S. citizen, generally interpreted as being born within U.S. territory or born abroad to U.S. citizen parents, along with being at least 35 years old and a 14-year resident of the U.S. This "natural-born" rule excludes naturalized citizens (like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Albert Einstein) and aims to ensure loyalty, but its precise definition (especially for those born abroad) has led to legal debate, though it hasn't been definitively settled by the Supreme Court. 

Although Mamdani seems to be out of the presidental running, he could become New York state's next governor. 

There are more politicians with big asperations, now plotting their next move.  

At age 41, Vice President JD Vance, a Republican and a Catholic convert, is married to Usha, age 39, a Hindu, with whom he has 3 children. He now seems to have set his sights on the US presidency. Though also a Republican, would he actually be a cruel as Trump, or as indifferent to the human impact of his decisions? We need a president who seeks the wellbeing of all citizens and even of opponents both here and all around the world. 

And then there is Gavin Newsom, California's Democratic governor, age 58, who might also want to be president and has no time to waste. 

Mamdani, Vance, and Newsom represent the next political generation. I don't know how Kamala Harris fits in here at age 61, but she needs to get out there right now to be in the running, as these guys have been grabbing all the headlines.  


Childcare is a major issue for American women, who no longer want to stay home caring for the kids, although paid childcare is usually performed by women, so other women are likely to be caring for the kids. Female caregivers are actually preferable, as having adult men caring for vulnerable unrelated small children often doesn't work out well, as was discussed earlier on this platform. It may be a matter of culture combined with testosterone. Women produce some testosterone, as well as the female hormone estrogen that may help counteract it. But men have so much more testosterone, perhaps as nature intended, incentivizing them to seek out mostly female sex partners to keep humankind always reproducing.

On these pages. I have already mentioned how putting lone men in charge of caring for young kids of either or both genders is not advisable, especially when they are not their own children. At least that has been my long experience as a mother, social worker, childcare licensing worker, and researcher on the subject. Women need to provide most paid care for small kids, perhaps together with some men serving with them as male role models. 

New Mexico already offers free childcare, as do several European countries. Free childcare may help keep the birthrate from falling further, but is unlikely to actually increase it.

Now that couples can largely control the number of children they may have, the average number of children per American family is about 1.6, the same as in North Korea, while South Korea has the world's lowest birthrate of .75, an average of less than one child per family. Niger has the world's highest birthrate of 6.7 children per family. 

The average birthrate in south Sudan is almost 4 children per woman, with mothers proudly showing off their kids to visitors like me. While we are on the subject of South Sudan, here is some other news about that country. . 
  
US judge blocks Trump plans to end deportation protections for South Sudanese migrants | Reuters https://www.reuters.com/world/us-judge-halts-end-deportation-protections-south-sudanese-migrants-2025-12-30/

Having traveled all over South Sudan myself, I know the many challenges its people face. Just daily living there is a struggle. However, children are also highly valued and women still consider raising them their primary duty. 

I also would contend that anyone from South Sudan who has successfuly made the arduous and unlikely journy to the US should not be deported there. We need to keep such ambitious and ingenious folks with us right here. Deporting them back to South Sudan would be folly, as we still need them to help us out here to help fill in our population gap and so they can just keep sending money home to support their country.

I've already previously made the case that screening immigrants is not practical. We just have to take our chnaces, as has always been the case.


Daily Beast. Shamans Deliver Ominous 2026 Health Prediction for Trump

CONCERNING OMEN

“The United States should prepare itself,” the Peruvian shamans have warned. They predict that Presient Trump will face a serious health challenge in 2026. At Donald Trump's age now, 79 (80 in June), it would not be very surprising if he should become ill. He already seems to have become rather tired of actually being president. 



Honduras' presidential runner-up challenges loss as legal action looms | Reuters https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/honduras-presidential-runner-up-nasralla-challenges-loss-2025-12-30/

The Honduran presidential election is not over yet. 

Unfortunately, TPS or Temporary Protected Status for Hondurans ended on September 8, 2025 after lower court stays were overruled. So then unaccompanied minors were put on planes to return alone to an unfamiliar country. 
The Trump administration has often acted in a deliberately ruthless and cruel manner, showing no compassion even for children. (The Statue of Liberty must now be shedding some copious tears.) Do most Americans really support such tactics? 
Because we really still need Hondurans and many others to stay right here, but Donald Trump, whose own wife and other family members have come from abroad, all without proper visas, has fiercely protected his own, but not others. It's not a matter of the law, but of who you know and who the president decides to favor.  

It's been rather amazing to see how Israel's reputation on the world stage has plummeted, though Mr. Trump is still providing Israel with US weapons and many dollars, something many of us oppose. 

Netanyahu says Trump to become first non-Israeli to receive Israel Prize

                        It's not the Nobel, but it is a prize. 

Many of us consider both Trump and Netanyahu to be war criminals. 

Israel is banning more than two dozen international humanitarian organizations, including Doctors Without Borders (or MSF), Oxfam, and the Norwegian Refugee Council, from operating in the Gaza Strip. I have often volunteered before with MSF.


I need to post this now, before it's 2026. 

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