Where to Spend Your Tax Dollars?

Chris Christie had a lot to say about abortion the other day. Mainly he’s against it, but he’ll go along if the voters vote for it, and it’s a state decision. That position will be okay with the GOP, which wants to get rid of abortion, but if they are forced to accept it by voter pressure, they at least want it to be a States Rights issue.  That sounds nice, but as we can already see it leads to chaos with every state having different rules and women having to leave their state because its rules don’t cover their specific situation. Some, very red states are even trying to limit travel for the benefit of abortion, while for others it’s a boost to the tourist industry.

I realize that different people with different needs and desires live in different states, but having different rules in each state is just looking for trouble. A single universal law that covers the whole country will avoid the current chaos and if it’s cleverly crafted it can meet the needs of most.

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Congress, when it returns from its vacation, must decide where we are going to spend our money. Of course, the principal foreign areas will be in Israel and Ukraine, but the House is threatening to hold that up if we don’t spend more on our own borders.

The GOP appears determined to jam up everything until border money is allocated, and there’s no question that border money is vitally important. The border has not worked for years, and the main issue is personnel. We need more border patrol, and we especially need more personnel in our hearing rooms and courts. It currently takes years to process immigrants into our country and that’s nothing but a national disgrace, especially considering the current need for immigrants in our labor force.

That said, nothing should take precedence over our commitment to Ukraine and Israel.

The money we propose to send to Israel is just part of what it will take to wipe out Hamas if that’s even possible.  Despite destroying a good part of Gaza and killing an estimated 15,000 Palestinians in their efforts to destroy Hamas the Israeli’s have, as far as can be calculated, only killed 2,000 of some 40,000 Hamas fighters. That’s not very impressive. The IDF is going to have to be a lot more effective if Israel expects to get much more money out of the US conservatives.

We also hear a lot of noise from certain parts of the GOP about cutting aid to Ukraine, but that’s just an example of ignorance among Trump supporters and other Putin loving factions of that shattered party.

The very simple fact is that if we do not support Ukraine in their fight against Russia we will, in the next few years, be sending our kids to Poland or Finland or some other NATO nation along the Russian border to defend them against Russian aggression.

Putin is an acquisitive animal. It is in his nature to try to extend the borders of his country in an attempt to rebuild the old Soviet Union. That’s what he is doing in Ukraine and if he’s successful there, he will do it all over Eastern Europe.

And the fact of the matter is that we don’t have to allocate all the money necessary to fight the Russians. There is another source of money available, and it would be ironic to use this money to defeat Russia because the money itself is Russian.

Yes, that’ right, there are trillions of dollars being held in various banks that were frozen as part of the sanctions against Russia for various violations of laws and treaties that Putin had been ignoring for as long as he’s been in office. We hold that money in banks all over the world, but so far, we have not used any of it. Seems like it’s time to dip in and pay for some of the stuff we’re losing to the Ukrainian war effort.

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Last month represents the sixtieth anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I’m sure that for a large number of those in my age bracket it was a seminal event. I know it was for me. It changed the world as I knew it, and while JFK may not have been a great president, he was a great symbol, which is, after all, what a president is supposed to be.  And that is why Trump must always be considered a failure. Kennedy and his family didn’t always maintain the highest standards, but they never acted in the disgusting manner that Trump has, and they always put the nation before personal considerations, which Trump has never done.

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Trump says Biden represents, Open Borders, no Energy Independence, a WOKE military, high Inflation, men playing in Women’s Sports, a weaponized DOJ-FBI and so many other crazy things it’s hard to keep track.

But what’s so bizarre about this list is that crazy as Trump is, he’s right about most of it. He’s just too dumb to understand why. So, let’s look at some of this drivel and and try to make sense of it.

Open borders

Sure, Biden’s for it, if you define it as a policy that is favorable to immigration, because we need more immigration, especially the kind that brings skilled workers to the manufacturing jobs in which they are needed.

No Energy Independence: Everybody who can think, understands that energy independence should only be a goal if you can do it without poisoning the planet. Right now, we are energy independent, but we are doing it with fossil fuel. We have to do it with renewables, or we won’t be here to appreciate it.

WOKE Military: This is a fantasy that is running around in Trump’s sick mind. There’s no reality to it.

High Inflation: No one is for high inflation but when you create high paying jobs and don’t have enough immigration to fill them, you sometimes get unwanted inflation. Trump solved this by cutting paychecks, busting unions, and destroying small businesses. Biden’s trying to fight his way out of it.

Men playing women’s sports: It’s interesting that with all the anti-gay movement behind Trump that they never really picked up on this. In reality the only ones for men playing women’s sports are the men who failed at men’s sports. Trump is just not bright enough to understand this really deep concept.

A weaponized DOJ-FBI: Considering the amount of time Trump spends telling us how, when he is President, he is going to get even with everyone who has ever crossed him, it appears that he’s the one looking to weaponize the DOJ & the FBI. He has all but sworn how he will form his own Gestapo and SS to get even with anyone who ever said anything bad about him. Every day his promises get wilder and more violent. If you want a civil war, Trump’s definitely your man.