This just in: What does Chris Rock have on his face? Fresh Prince.

Will Smith should be charged with assault. Why? Because he assaulted someone. “He was just protecting his wife’s honor,” you say. So, you get to decide what is justifiable assault? He should be charged and forced to state his defense.

Why am I making a big deal out of this? Because wealth does not mean you are entitled to a different set of laws and justice.

Wealth and power should not equate to leniency.

Once upon a time, I would watch something on the news about Trump and think, “Finally, he is caught red-handed and will have to pay a price.” I have been wrong every. single. time.

Men of power defying Congressional subpoenas have nothing to fear from today’s legal system.

A supreme court justice is the only one out of 9 that tried to keep certain January 6th documents out of the hands of Congress. These particular documents had emails with his wife urging Trump’s Chief of Staff to overturn an election. Clarence Thomas used his position on the Supreme Court to try to keep these emails secret. And…goes on to say he is impartial.

He would face consequences except that the Republican Party has come out publicly and said there is no conflict of interest here that they can detect.

This is eerily similar to Trump’s first impeachment. You may recall that Trump threatened to withhold weapons from Ukraine unless they “did him a favor.” Republicans didn’t think there was anything wrong with this. It couldn’t be extortion because Trump didn’t specifically say, “I extort thee!”

Republicans are even against prosecuting the people that stormed the capital on January 6th, resulting in several deaths. This was an attempted Coup that that Republican Party has referred to an “normal political discourse.”

There is a problem here. If you are coming back at me with “They all do it,” then you are a part of the problem.

Here is a funny video…

Time to save the world.

Up, up and away…

Jim

This just in: According to many MAGA Republicans, if Donald Trump was the president today, there would be no war in Ukraine. Should you believe this?

The answer is NO. There is a reason for this. The Republican Party has a long history of promising and then not delivering.

Let’s just take a couple of examples.

How many of you are enjoying the replacement for Obamacare that the Republicans promised you would get as soon at they were in power? No one? Really? Could it be that after a decade of promising to “Repeal and Replace”, they actually did nothing about it once they were in power? Ask them about it…crickets.

How many of you enjoyed filing your taxes on a post card and then watching as our national debt dropped after the Republicans passed a massive tax cut for the rich? No one? Really? Instead, we got a massive $8 trillion added to the national debt.

The Republican Party has made itself a national party by promising all sorts of things and then actually delivering nothing; excepts wealth to their donors.

It’s not like they do this some of the time or most of the time. They do it ALL of the time.

They are a 1-trick pony.

Why do we keep falling for this? The answer is psychologically based. We think things like “Well, maybe they can’t deliver on this or that promise but if only a little bit is true then its worth the risk.” Or, there is the “fear factor”. This is the same thing churches use to fill the tray. “Follow us or go to hell.” Republicans will tell you that you will lose your guns, or a recession will hit or we’ll be thrown into a needless war. All just made up to feed your fear.

Here is the news…not even a little bit is true.

As educated voters, we need to stop being Charlie Brown when Lucy offers to hold the football for him to kick.

Here is a music video…

Time to save the world.

Up, up and away…

Jim

This just in: The president of the United States does not control gas prices.

I recall when George W. was president and gas prices shot up for some reason. Fox news spent a lot of time telling us that the president doesn’t control gas prices. A couple of years, later, Obama was president and gas prices spiked. Fox then spent a lot of time telling us it was Obama’s fault.

What is really happening here?

When the price of oil goes up, the price of gas goes up. Makes sense. The price of oil goes up when the demand rises faster than the supply. In short, oil becomes more scarce and thus, it becomes more expensive. OPEC bases its entire output on this idea. They cut back on supply until the price goes up to where they want it to be.

Also, uncertainty in the market can make people behave as if oil is in short supply because they believe it will be in the future. This is why wars involving oil producing countries causes prices to go up. We fear that the war will slow production and thus, lower the global supply.

So, where does the president come into play?

The short answer is “Nowhere.”

The president does not create demand; the consumer does.

The president does not tell private oil companies how much oil to produce. Right now there are thousands of drilling permits issued by the government that are not being used because the oil companies don’t feel it is profitable to do so.

None of this is a secret. In fact, this is something you would learn in the first couple of hours of a Economics 101 class.

Republicans said, “Don’t take oil from Russia.” They are basically joining support for Ukraine, albeit, a little late. They don’t mention that we sell more oil to Russia than we import. In short, if there was no war, cutting off Russian oil would have virtually no impact on gas prices.

Today, Republicans, who are historically terrible at economics, are claiming that the president is raising gas prices. These people, and those that nod along with this statement, are either stupid or believe that you are stupid.

Don’t be stupid.

Here is a music video…

Time to save the world.

Up, up and away…

Jim

This just in: Right now, Putin is angry. He grossly miscalculated how the war with Ukraine was going to go and now he desperately needs to find a way to get out of the mess he created without seeming to have not won.

I think it’s time for me to give my take on the war.

First of all, I can’t overstate how impressed I am by the Ukrainian will to fight for their country. Their president is an inspiration that will quite possibly grow if the Russian dare to take him out.

Russia appears to have made the following bad assumptions:

1. Trump would be in power and thus, allow Russia to do whatever it wanted. Trump would have pulled the U.S. from NATO by now.
2. The world would have treated the invasion much as they treated the Crimea annexation. The simpler, safer thing would be for everyone to just ignore what Russia was doing.
3. A fast overthrow would have meant that supply lines would be far less important. Instead, the war is dragging on and fuel/food for the attacking forces is simply not ready.
4. Somehow, the Russian people would go on believing that Nazis had taken over poor Ukraine and Putin needed to go in an save them.
5. The Ukrainian forces would not be willing nor equipped to put up much of a resistance.

Had Putin’s assumptions been correct, he could have added a huge country to his own domain with very little effort.

However he was wrong on every single assumption.

I have a few other opinions:

1. We, NATO, should not put in a no-fly zone. To do this, we would have to enforce it. This would mean engaging Russian forces in the air and on the ground. This would include taking out long-range surface to air missiles inside of Russia. This means war.
2. A war with Russia will mean the use of nuclear weapons. This is a war where no one wins.
3. Giving planes to Ukraine is a bad idea. First of all, they are Russian MIG-29’s which the Russians will have no trouble shooting down. Secondly, hand held surface-to-air missiles and anti-tank weapons are plentiful. Use these.
4. The U.S. embargo of Russian oil is symbolic and thus important.
5. The President of the United States has no impact on the cost of gas. There are plenty of oil leases (thousands) already approved so if the oil companies want to drill for oil, they can.
6. Fox News appears to be an arm of the Russian propaganda machine. There are people in Russia that think Putin is fighting Nazis. They think this because their only source of news is Russian TV. In the states, we have much the same issue where people only get their news from FOX and thus, are fans of Putin.
7. Republicans did the following: (1) Claimed that Biden was making up stories about a Russian invasion of Ukraine and (2) After the invasion began they claimed we weren’t prepared. These are the same Republicans that turned their heads when Trump tried to extort Ukraine by holding back promised weapons; resulting in the first Trump impeachment.

I think there is little doubt that the government in Ukraine will fall. Putin has too many weapons. This does not mean that the war will be over. I think it could be years of fighting before eventually, one side will give up. My hope is that Putin’s own people turn against him.

Now for a music video…

Time to save the world.

Up, up and away…

Jim