Do we really want a Strongman?

This just in: I had a friend, a Republican friend, recently mentioned to me that “Biden is such a weak leader.”

I ignored this comment, which came out of left field, as something said to test my political position. Sometimes, it’s best to leave politics at the door.

Still, I know the origins of this comment. This person is a Fox viewer so I immediately know that nothing short of conversion therapy will rid her of their nonsense. But the “origins” of her comment came from the tendency of everyone to refer to Trump as a “strongman.”

It sounds like a positive: Strongman.

But that’s now what it means. A strongman is a type of authoritarian political leader characterized by autocratic dictatorship which depend on the military to keep themselves in power.

Other strongmen include Hitler, Mussolini, Hungary’s Victor Orban, Russia’s Putin, and Turkey’s Erdogan.

A strongman does not refer to physical strength. Nor does is refer to a strength of character. It certainly does not refer to someone that is characterized as a leader of a democracy.

So NO. I don’t think we need a strongman. It’s like saying we need to be ruled by a dictator.

In other news…the economy is suffering because the Republican Party won’t raise the debt limit. This is 100% on them. The last time they did this, the credit rating of the United States dropped. This causes us to pay more for everything.

In other news…Today marks the 1-year anniversary of a mass shooting that killed a bunch of children. Do not be confused…This is 100% the fault of the Republican Party.

In other news…Women are suffering increased medical trauma due to the anti-abortion movement. Do not be confused…This is 100% the fault of the Republican Party.

It has been roughly 40 years since any non-destructive legislation was passed by the Republican Party.

Just sayin…

Time to save the world.

Up, up and away…

Jim

Witch-hunt or Investigation?

This just in: I need to bitch a little more about the Republican party. I can’t help myself.

Let’s start with the difference between an “investigation” and a “witch-hunt.” According to Republicans, if a Republican is being investigated, it’s a “witch-hunt.” If a Democrat is being investigated, it’s an “investigation.”

How do the parties differ on what to do with the results?

Democrats say, “If there is evidence, show it. If there is guilt, apply appropriate punishment.” This is true regardless of who is being investigated. Take Hunter Biden for example. I have no idea what he is being accused of but Liberal media is united in saying, “What’s the big deal? If there is evidence that he broke the law, show it. If he is guilty of a crime then of course he should do the time.”

Republicans will simply lie about it if the results are against them. Trump is found guilty of defamation of a woman he sexually attacked. The guilt was unanimously determined by a jury of 12 American citizens. The Republicans call this a joke, implying that the jury, all of the jury, hated Trump. In other words, this was a witch-hunt and deserves no recognition.

The Durham report just came out. It was started 4 years ago to investigate an investigation into Trump. The claim by Trump was that this would expose the deep state liberal plot against him. Instead, it found ZERO criminal behavior. It found ZERO influence due to political bias within the FBI. It found some procedural errors which we discovered and corrected 4 years ago. In short…a big nothing burger.

In other news, Giuliani is being sued for sexual harassment. He is also being accused of selling presidential pardons. The accuser apparently has emails and numerous recordings to support her claims. This, along with Giuliani’s well-known behavior seems to paint a fairly guilty picture of him. Still, let the courts figure it out. If he’s innocent, let him go. If he’s guilty, apply the appropriate punishment.

You see, this is how our judicial system works. You can suspect something at any time. You can investigate that “something” and then, depending on your findings, apply justice.

The judicial system is not, “He’s rich so let him go.” The judicial system is not, “He’s a member of our party so let him go.” The judicial system is not based on witchcraft. The judicial system is not based on “I have tons of evidence that I’ll show you sometime in the future.”

It’s based on facts and applied to all American equally.

Or at least, that was the original intent.

Time to save the world.

Up, up and away…

Jim

Shame

This just in: A few months ago I posted a response on Reddit, anonymously, an answer to a question. The question was, “Why have you left Facebook?” There were hundreds of answers. Mine was, “I was disappointed to see how many of the kids I grew up with became MAGA.”

I grew up in a small town; one where whites may have been a slight majority with Latino and African Americans making up the rest. I don’t recall racism being an issue. We were all kids playing together, going to school together and working in the fields together.

Then I left and joined the Navy.

Decades later, I get on Facebook, excited to see old friends. This lasted for a few years but eventually, I had to accept that the way I see the world is vastly different from many of those I grew up with.

One guy posted something about Obama being a “sand nigger.” Another bragged about how he wasn’t married but he had loads of money and this kept him surrounded by women. Others talked about loving guns and always got upset when someone said, “Maybe we should look at some common-sense gun laws.” Then Trump came along and they fell in line right behind him.

I left and never looked back.

Then last night, Trump had a townhall on CNN.

During this event, he lied about the election being stolen and the All-Republican crowd cheered. He called the woman that just won a sexual defamation suit against him a “wacko” and the crowd cheered. He said the people that stormed the Capital on Jan 6th were “people with love in their hearts” and the crowd cheered.

Donald Trump represents the most damaged personality one can imagine. He has zero redeeming qualities. He’s a pathological liar. He hates women. He can’t possibly have an IQ over 100. He is a coward. He is a racist. He is vindictive. He is a tax cheat. He tried to overthrow the government.

And people still cheer him on.

I’m not talking about a room full of people at a townhall. I’m talking about tens of millions.

That’s how many people want to vote for him and think he is the guy that should be running our country.

They want a president that added $2 trillion to the national debt just to give tax breaks to the rich. A guy that thinks Putin was a genius to attack Ukraine. A guy stole government secret documents by the hundreds. A guy tore children from their parents at the border to “teach the parents a lesson.” A guy had sex with a pornstar while his wife was pregnant and then paid her to be quiet about it. A guy whose son-in-law used his family ties to get a $2 billion investment from the Saudis.

A guy that will spend his next time as president getting the United States out of NATO.

A guy that said, “If I ever run for office, it will be as a Republican because those guys will believe anything.”

Have we no shame?

I think not. And that is the problem.

Time to save the world.

Up, up and away…

Jim

Is Donald Trump a Republican Messiah or a Sex Offender?

This just in: The verdict is in on the Donald Trump trial.

You may ask: “Do you mean the tax/insurance fraud case in New York?” or “The insurrection case?” or “The hush money case?” or “The case of election interference in Georgia?” or “Stolen secret documents case?”

The answer would be: None of the above; at least, not yet.

The verdict that came in is for the defamation case where a woman accused Trump of raping her and his response was to ruin her career.

Trump was found guilty by a jury of his peers. Not guilty of rape. That was never the charge in this case. Rather, guilty of sexually assaulting this woman and then denying it and thus ruining her career.

You probably already knew this, unless you listen to Fox News.

I did give Fox a listen this morning. While the other networks were all about Trump being found guilty or Republican Santos being indicted for fraud (he’s the guy that keeps lying about everything) or about gun control or about the debt ceiling or about Republican scoffing at the idea that a trial by one’s peers is even fair..while this was on other networks, Fox reported that a dog won the Westminster dog show.

Fox also reported that at 9:00 am they would be covering evidence that Hunter Biden’s laptop showed all kinds of criminal activity. I turned in at 9:00 am and there was one sentence that said something like “Later today will be the report Biden has been fearing.”

This is like the Pillow Guy spending 2 years saying, “Next week I’ll reveal all my evidence that the election was stolen.” By the way…still waiting on that big reveal.

So, a little hairy dog won a big prize and soon, we will hear more about something that will be released at a later date.

Fox news viewers are glued to their TV’s waiting for the next teaser.

Me…I have a world to save.

Up, up and away…

Jim

The Debt Ceiling

This just in: The debt ceiling is the maximum amount of debt the United States is legally allowed to incur. It is not a budget. It is not the same thing as the “national debt” or the “deficit.” It is not intended to be used as a budgetary or spending tool. It is an artificially created thing that basically causes Congress to notice when they are spending a lot of money that they don’t have.

If you want to increase or decrease spending, then do that will budget appropriations. This is when Congress decides to spend or not spend money. Various members can vote for or against spending or spending cuts.

To vote against the Debt Ceiling however, is something very different. It basically says, “I am voting to not pay the bills that our government agreed to pay when we created the budget.”

Let’s look at it another way. You have a certain amount of income every month and your spending is based on that. You may want to spend less and save money or you may decide that to get something you want, you have to borrow or create a debt. So, let’s buy a house and have a debt that we pay every month. Deciding to not raise the debt ceiling is not the same as deciding to not buy a house. The house has already been bought. Deciding to not raise the debt ceiling is the same as saying, “I want to spend less money so I think I will stop paying my mortgage.”

If you don’t pay your mortgage, your credit rating will drop and all future debt spending will cost you more because lower credit ratings equal higher interest rates. Also, if you don’t pay your mortgage, someone else won’t get their money who won’t be able to pay someone else who then won’t be able to pay someone else….on and on.

In short, not paying your debt, or not raising the debt ceiling is the fastest, most certain way, to ruin the economy.

And remember, this is not about budgeting unless you make it that.

You could just as well say, “We Republicans aren’t going to approve raising the debt ceiling unless the president resigns or we all get free cars or we change the name of Thanksgiving to Food Appreciation Day. None of these are related unless someone decides to make them so.

The Republicans in Congress, the ones that raised the ceiling every year under Trump, the ones that added 2 trillion to the national debt by giving tax cuts to the rich, have all decided that they will link the debt ceiling to some budget cuts. Furthermore, they have not even specified what these cuts would be.

In short, they are willing to ruin our economy so that the United States will default on its debt. Once that happens, they will blame this default on Biden even though he is fighting to keep the Republicans from causing it to happen.

This is our Republican Party. The very same party that thinks the reason the United States leads the world, by far, in gun violence is that, for some reason, we have more mental illness in the United States. The same party thinks women should not make critical health decisions for their bodies. The same party that was appalled when Bill Clinton got a BJ from an intern but cheers for Trump who is about to lose a rape trial.

Our government is a mess. I know who to blame for this. Do you?

Time to save the world.

Up, up and away…

Jim

Republican Projection

This just in: Psychological projection isĀ a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult feelings or emotions. Psychological projection involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings.

In simple terms, at least for me: A bank robber is videoed robbing a bank. The police stop him outside the bank and say, “You’re under arrest.” The robber caught red-handed responds with, “No, you’re under arrest for robbing a bank.”

This “projection defense” is the unwritten first law of the Republican playbook. If they are caught doing something that they know they shouldn’t be doing, step one is to accuse the other party of doing that very same thing.

For example, Donald Trump lies obviously and continuously. One of his favorite adjectives he uses to describe someone that he no longer likes is to call them “dishonest.”

Republicans call any attempt to hold Trump accountable for things like (1) lying and providing false information to further his political campaign (Stormy Daniels) or (2) Attempting to get a state official to aid in the overturning of a fair election (Georgia) or (3) Income tax evasion and insurance fraud (New York) or (4) Illegally hoarding highly classified documents and then lying about it (twice) or (5) Inciting a violent attempt to overthrow the United States government. Just to name a few. To the Republican party, attempting to even investigate these potential crimes is an abuse of power.

Republicans are projecting when they do this. They ignore things like (1) Barr reading the Muller report and then publicly and wrong reporting that the report cleared Trump of all claims about Russian interference or (2) DeSantis in Florida using his position to punish Disney because they came out publicly against his anti-LGBTQ initiatives and pledged to stop supporting Republicans in the state.

What does this mean to me?

I try to fact-check things if possible. I do have a couple of shortcuts. For example:

  1. I try not to believe that something is true just because I want it to be true.
  2. I look for “projection”. For example, is Matt Goetz accusing someone of pedophilia? Is Lindsey Graham taking anti-LGBTQ stances?
  3. I look for inconstancies. For example, would a headline like “Biden is against school lunch programs for the poor” really be consistent with what we know about Biden? Is it reasonable to think that Donald Trump broke the law?
  4. I know that Fox News and MSNBC are both extremely biased so I never hang my hat on a position that they put forth.
  5. Do a few Google searches. Check the source of those searches.

Time to save the world.

Up, up and away…

Jim

Corrupted!

This just in: The reason we can’t have nice things is that our politicians are corrupt.

The reason this is the case has been the case and will continue to be the case is that the only ones that can pass laws to stop corruption are the very people that profit wildly from the corruption.

Now, just in case you are getting ready to say, “Yes, they all do it,” pause for a moment. Yes, there have been instances of a Democrat or Independent acting corruptly. However, the Republican Party has institutionalized this behavior. If you are a Republican, you are expected to be corrupt.

Republicans are paid by the insurance lobby to make sure healthcare remains profitable for those that sell it.

Republicans are paid by big oil to oppose Green Energy so that big oil will continue to profit.

Republicans are paid by the gun lobby to make sure millions of guns continue to make their way into households across the country.

Republicans give tax breaks to the rich and to corporations because these entities pay them to do so.

There are other things Republicans do that falls short of corruption but are just as damaging.

Republicans legally create laws that prevent voters from voting against them.

Republicans have redefined Gerrymandering so that they can be in a vast minority and still win elections.

Republicans don’t treat poverty issues because there is no money in it.

Republicans don’t solve economic problems because the solutions often are counter to what their donors are paying them to do.

Republican choose hot topics such as abortion or immigration to attract single-issue voters.

I was a Republican. I have not been one since we invaded Iraq on a false premise. An invasion that led to 20 years worth of needless was in the middle east.

I left the party when the evidence was overwhelming to me that they had no interest in actual governance. They were simply corrupt.

And…they become more so every day.

Time to save the world.

Up, up and away…

Jim

An inability to govern

As far as I can see, the Republican party lacks any ability to govern.

Let’s take a look at their positions on major issues:

  1. Gun control: Love the gun
  2. Feeding the poor: Not on the agenda
  3. Ukraine: Half support, half like Putin
  4. Homelessness: Not on the agenda
  5. Abortion: Complete ban, including birth control
  6. Immigration: Don’t care but like the problem since they can blame it on someone else. No solutions offered.
  7. Education: Unimportant
  8. Military: Love it. The entire party is funded by the defense industry
  9. Voting: Oppose all efforts to let people vote that don’t vote Republican
  10. Campaign finance: Unrestricted and unregulated
  11. Healthcare: No plan
  12. Taxes: Cut them on the rich
  13. States rights: Opposed to any state right issue that might get Trump in trouble
  14. Election fairness: Election was stolen even though there is no evidence and they secretly admit it was fair.
  15. LGBTQ: Nope, against it. Want to make it a crime
  16. Books: Ban them if they talk about slavery, misogyny, murder, revenge, homosexuality or anything that is uncomfortable.
  17. Opinion of the Bible: Think the Constitution should be based on it even though it promotes: slavery, misogyny, murder, revenge, homosexuality and many other things that make people uncomfortable.
  18. The poor: No plan
  19. International Affairs: One plan – oppose anything the Democrats initiate.
  20. Climate change: Denialists
  21. White supremist: Like looking in the mirror but don’t say it out loud.
  22. January 6th: Normal political discourse.
  23. Next candidate for president: Trump
  24. What should be taught in schools: Up to angry parents that don’t believe in science and think school is where the Bible should be taught.
  25. Mass killings: A good time to send thoughts and prayers and buy more stock in gun manufacturing.
  26. Inflation: They don’t understand the causes or solutions but they love it because they can blame it on someone else.
  27. Small government: Yes, with the exception of controlling your sexuality and what you learn in school, who can vote, how you raise your kids, how your taxes are spent and stuff like that.
  28. Racism: Love it, but can’t say it out loud
  29. Opinion of voters: Doobs
  30. Opinion of Free Press: Great so long as that only applies to Tucker Carlson

Time to save the world.

Up, up and away…

Jim

“Woke” is the new “N word”

The Right has been calling the Left “woke” for the last couple of years. They do this even though they are unable to define the term itself. I believe it has 2 definitions that apply simultaneously. The first is that you don’t believe in what I believe in. For example, one person that is anti-LGBTQ will call a pro-LGBTQ person “woke” because their beliefs differ. The second is racist. “You are woke because you support political correctness.” This last statement is code for “I want to live in a white Christian American but I’m not allowed to say that our loud.”

As I read the papers today, I see Tucker Carlson hates Trump and thinks that Joe Biden won the election. He also says just the opposite on TV because, according to Fox owner Rupert Murdock, that’s where the money is. People will watch if Fox supports Trump nonsense. The greater the audience, the greater the ad revenue.

Trump started the rumor that he was going to be arrested yesterday. Online, the top 2 comments about this were: (1) Which of his multiple crimes is he going to be arrested for and (2) Is it possible that Trump will be tried as an adult?

Trump supporters start calling the United States a “police state” because they are arresting a man that they like for crimes he is believed to have committed. Gym Jordan, yesterday, called Trump’s payoff to a porn star an “accounting error.”

The Republicans are investigating Hunter Biden. I have no problem with this. If he committed a crime, he should do the time. However, when one of the investigating Republicans was questioned about this, they admitted they had found no criminal activity thus far but would continue to investigate until they found something. By this logic, every person in the country could be subjected to an investigation.

There is so much hypocrisy/duplicity in the Republican Party, I no longer try to keep track. Corruption is their brand. I see nothing to contradict this and evidence daily to support it.

I have also discovered, sort of, the reason that there are any Republican supporters out there.

Here it is: Back in the 70s, McDonald’s introduced the Quarter Pounder. Not to be outdone, Burger King introduced the 1/3 pounder. Burger King’s offering failed because a large portion of the American public believed that a 1/3 pound burger was smaller than a 1/4 pound burger. This is why we have Republicans.

There is significant evidence that the more educated you are, the more you know, and the less likely you are to vote Republican.

I bring this up because the problem isn’t Tucker Carlson or Fox news. These are instances of people taking advantage of the market. It’s like blaming an umbrella maker on the rain. There is going to be rain. The umbrella maker is just capitalizing on this.

If Fox news and Carlson disappeared, their replacements would start competing for that slice of the market the very next day. Why? Because there is money in it.

Thus, the problem is not the media. The problem is with the consumers of that media. People seek out someone telling them what they want to be true, even in the face of contrary evidence.

So, when your neighbor tells you he/she votes Republican, you know you are looking at a sponsor of a fascist form of government. They would certainly deny this because they won’t think of it this way. They think they are following the truth.

They will say, I vote Republican because I always have. They won’t say, I support a racist based political party because I am secretly racist. They can’t see that far. Once they have their desired beliefs confirmed, they stop inquiring about the truth.

Time to save the world.

Up, up and away…

Jim