THE LAST BIG WEEK OF 2025

There’s shocking news and then there is news that literally shocks you when you hear it. The deaths of Rob and Michelle Reiner yesterday in a homicide committed by their oldest son Nick - who has struggled frm his youth with drug addiction and homelessness - shocked me to my core when I saw the headline in the LA Times feed in my inbox. I knew Rob in the business - first in the Independent Feature Project back in the 80s, and more recently as a result of Michelle getting a script of mine via a mutual friend - the late Joe Galloway - that she recommended to Rob. He always took a recommendation from Michelle - who many of us called his “producing partner” - very seriously. Unfortunately the business changed in such a way during the pandemic that it became clear the project couldn’t proceed. Rob was pretty much exactly what any of you would expect from the shows he was in and the movies he made. He could do anything - from serious drama to one of the scariest horror movies ever (stay away from “number one fans”) to crazy comedy. The two of them were one of those Perfect Matches one runs across too seldom. I think I will watch the two “Spinal Tap” movies this week. Ironically, I recorded them Sunday afternoon, about the same time this terrible event happened. The dial will always “go to 11” when I think of them. That two people like them were the victims in something like this is just devastating and unimaginable. I also think of Rob’s work over the past ten years opposing the senile old traitor and his MAGAts. The LAPD has announced early this morning that 32-year-old Nick Reiner has been taken into custody and booked on suspicion of murder. His bail was set at $4 million. There is a story circulating that he and his parents were involved in a loud argument at Conan O’Brien’s Christmas Party on Saturday Night.

Of course, the world’s worst piece of shit had to make a typically trashy, tacky, vicious comment about Reiner. Sundowning Grampa - a totally talentless neverwas who hates everyone better than he is - managed to stumble to the Golden Thone and spew this on Lies Anti-Social: “Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, 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, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!” It was so bad that even Republicans are criticizing the senile old fartsack this morning. “Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered,” posted Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a frequent target of the president’s wrath. “I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it.” Actor, singer and comedian Josh Gad wrote: “There is no low that is too low for this psychopath. Rob Reiner was 1000 times the man you are and unlike you, he actually cared about the American people. Go paint your hand on your gold toilet and destroy things like the White House. That’s what you do best.” A number of influential right-wing figures are outraged by Trump’s shitheadedness here. Right wing influencer Robby Starbuck wrote: “What happened last night to Rob Reiner and his wife was a savage butchering of 2 human lives. I don’t care what their politics were or how they felt about Trump, no law abiding human deserves this. We should pray for + send condolences to his loved ones and NOT make it political.” Piers Morgan called on Trump to delete the post. MTG wrote: “Rob Reiner and his wife were tragically killed at the hands of their own son, who reportedly had drug addiction and other issues, and their remaining children are left in serious mourning and heartbreak. This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies. Many families deal with a family member with drug addiction and mental health issues. It’s incredibly difficult and should be met with empathy especially when it ends in murder.”The Charlie Kirk Show has also issued a call for Trump to delete the post. I’ll just come out and say it: this is the most deranged, demented demonstration of his insanity that Trump has ever done. It demonstrates how fundamentally and fully evil he is.

The violence over the weekend was also shocking. The killing of Jews in Australia who were celebrating the first night of Hannukah - a ceremony that honors the victory of light over darkness - was particularly so when it was announced that one of the victims was a Holocaust survivor. The perpetrators were a father-son terrorists who had created a group pledged to ISIS. This is the worst shooting event in Australia since the shootings in the 1990s that led to the outright ban of semiautomatic military rifles and the destruction of those taken. The only upside to this that I can think of is that it would have been far worse if those weapons were still available. The event tops a list of increasingly-violent acts of antisemitism in the country following the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel. The actions of Ahmed al-Ahmed who, out of sheer bravery and thanks to his training and background in law enforcement, disarmed one of the killers, saving untold lives demonstrates the shitheadedness of the Islamophobes who always crawl out from under their rocks at times like this. Al-Ahmed is the son of refugees and a father of two. He acted like the rest of us would like to think we would. As one commentator aptly noted, “You’d think that a Muslim man on Bondi Beach committing one of the most heroic acts ever caught on camera might dispel some of the otherwise inevitable racist rhetoric. But it won’t.” The shooting of students at Brown University who were preparing to take a science final to me symbolizes the war on intelligence being pushed on us by the MAGA morons. No one has been arrested yet. That two of the survivors were survivors of previous school shooings at Saugus, California, and the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas attack in Florida, is unspeakable in its irony. I really am in favor of taking their guns from their cold, dead hands - after making them cold and dead. Police released a man detained in connection with the shooting, in an embarrassing twist Keystone K$H Patel who had previously posted about tracking the person of interest down, claiming that the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team had used “critical geolocation capabilities” to detain the man in a hotel room. This is now the third time K$H has stepped on his dick in public, “leading” Fools & Buffoons Inc. After the wrong person.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is planning to enact stricter gun laws after a shooting at a Hanukkah event that left at least 16 people dead Sunday. “What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism, an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location, Bondi Beach, that is associated with joy, associated with families, gathering, associated with celebrations, and it’s forever tarnished by what has occurred last evening,” Albanese told reporters during a press conference Monday in Sydney. “The Jewish community are hurting today,” he added. “Today, all Australians wrap our arms around them and say, we stand with you. We will do whatever is necessary to stamp out antisemitism. It is a scourge, and we will eradicate it together.” Albanese proposed restrictions that would limit the number of guns someone could own, along with regular reviews of gun licenses. “People’s circumstances change. People can be radicalized over a period of time, licenses should not be in perpetuity,” he said. The prime minister’s office released a statement following a meeting of the National Cabinet, which includes state leaders and regional leaders, on Monday. “Leaders agreed that strong, decisive and focused action was needed on gun law reform as an immediate action,” it said. Too bad something like this will never happen in the insane and ignorant United States.

Ahmed al-Ahmed has been hailed as a hero and has received more than $1 million from a GoFundMe page since Sunday.

A new poll by Democratic firm Navigator finds voters blame Trump and Republicans for high costs by 21 points over Democrats, which echoes a recent Politico poll. Chuck Schumer is tasking top committee Democrats to come up with policy ideas to address different aspects of the affordability issue, the sources said, to sell to voters in the coming election year. The focus on affordability has led several Democratic strategists to suggest candidates start campaigning on tariffs now. There is more and more data showing voters are blaming Trump’s tariffs for high prices. The Politico poll found that 36% of Trump voters say tariffs are harming the econom. That’s still a minority, but it’s a significant percentage considering how faithful his voters have been. This does appear to be The Issue of 2026. Nothing Trump has done and nothing he has proposed will bring down costs or inflation. Along with the blame voters are already assigning to Republicans for the Obamacare and medicaid crises in healthcare, the worse off the traitors are. The 2026 mid-term is looking more and more like the kind of wave election that sees politicians get swept away in the flood. It couldn’t hapen to a nicer bunch.

Trump’s DOJ has been pursuing charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) for allegedly assaulting a federal officer during a protest outside of an immigration facility in Newark, New Jersey, back in May. Recently, the DOJ was forced to turn over exculpatory evidence, including text messages to McIver’s defense team that show DOJ officials knew McIver did not assault the officer, and said the video the Trump administration relied on for the prosecution did not show her assaulting the officer either. The materials have been called a “case killer” by legal analysts. McIver’s legal team has claimed that the video of the incident would show the Congresswoman did not impede the agents, as the charging document alleges. They appear to be right. Another score for Trump’s DOJ in proving to judges that nothing they say or do can be trusted.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) told local news station WCCO in Minneapolis-St. Paul Sunday that her son was pulled over by ICE agents for speeding on Saturday (how in hell does ICE have jurisdiction for speeding, a state or local charge?) and was asked to prove his citizenship. Her son was able to produce a passport identification, and was let go thereafter. “Given that they can run plates, this was potentially targeted,” Harvard law professor Alejandra Caraballo posted on Bluesky. “This administration is completely out of control.”

Inspiring: After weeks of protests against corruption and sweeping budget cuts, more than 100,000 people gathered in the capital of Sofia to demand the government’s resignation. There were also rallies held in dozens of other cities across the country. And it worked. The Prime Minister ended up resigning, along with his entire government.

As Ukrainian and US officials meet in Germany this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is pushing back on Trump’s so-called “peace deal”—a plan that was clearly designed by Russia. Zelensky is presenting his own proposal, in which Ukraine would agree not to join NATO—for now—in exchange for firm security guarantees. The proposal also refuses to surrender any territory that Ukraine controls. On Sunday, Zelensky made it clear: “The most important thing is that the plan be as fair as possible—first and foremost for Ukraine, because it was Russia that started this war.” Something that Republicans usually fail to grasp. He added: “Above all, it must be workable. The plan truly should not be just a piece of paper, but a meaningful step toward ending the war.”

Stephen Miller has been called out by his own cousin for seeking to “take away” the opportunities that once allowed their own Jewish immigrant family to thrive. Alisa Kasmer, a cousin on his father’s side, told The New Republic’s Greg Sargent, “We’re Jewish—we grew up knowing how hated we were just for existing. Now he’s trying to take away the exact thing that his own family benefitted from: that ability to create a life for themselves, to prosper, to build community, to have successful businesses—to live a rewarding life.” Kasmer’s comments follow a July Facebook post in which she disowned Miller and wrote: “I am living with the deep pain of watching someone I once loved become the face of evil.”

Senators in both parties are bracing for another government shutdown next year after Republicans blocked a proposal to extend expiring health insurance subsidies. This has given new momentum to liberals to argue Democrats should use the upcoming Jan. 30 government funding deadline as leverage — just as they did in September and October — to force Republicans to make major concessions on federal health care spending. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the next government funding deadline is a leverage point. “The fight is not over.” The Democratic senators said Democrats would have far less leverage if the Senate appropriations package, which covers the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Labor, Commerce, Justice and Interior, among other agencies, passes next month. If Trump signs that package into law, it would result in approximately 85 percent of the federal government being funded through September 2026, leaving Democrats much less leverage to threaten a shutdown to get Republicans to agree to an extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits (doing this would presupposed Republicans are capable of walking and thought at the same time, a fact not in evidence). However, if those bills stall, then the likelihood of a shutdown skyrockets, raising this interesting question: Do they shut down over health care or Venezuela or Epstein files not being delivered.

I think this is enough news for today.

Photo: KarenRN

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