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

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

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

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

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